“We went from a company that took about 45 days to create in five different service points to 45 minutes and 37 seconds, which is the latest average to create a company at one point or online,” the former minister of the presidency and of administrative modernisation Maria Manuel Leitão Marques said.


Marques, who left office in February to join the socialist list for the European elections, also mentioned the measure created by the government to open a “Company on the spot” as being instrumental in the drop in time to create a company.


“For us, the problem of digital in public administration has always been seen as an instrument to simplify,” Marques said.


“Our programme, which today is a benchmark in Portugal, known both by companies and citizens, is called Simplex and joins these two aspects as two sides of the same coin.”


Portugal’s president Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, refused the idea of a “public administration at various speeds,” defended the digital investment in the state, and called for the end of the technological inequalities for the citizens.


“There cannot be a public administration at various speeds, some advanced and other delayed,” De Sousa said.


“Digitisation cannot be a lost revolution for the reform of public administration.”


“We know very significant advances,” he said, referring to measures such as Simplex or the hosting of Web Summit.


“We have to take advantage of digitisation to reform public administrations, to change the mentality, civic awareness, substance and approach to people.”