“Who would be the applicant?” This may be the common question before starting an approval process. In product approval, “Applicant” commonly refers to the party who will be appointed as the certificate holder. The requirements of being “applicant” may be different for each country. Some countries obligate applicant to be the actual importer or distributor of the product, other allow manufacturer to be the applicant, and some other allows local representation practice. Therefore, we need to know the actual rule of “applicant” so we’re not wrong in choosing which party to be appointed as applicant.
Specifically for Mexico, certificate is tied to the importation process. The certificate document will be requested by customs for clearance. Therefore, in order to be aligned, certificate holder must be the same as the actual importer. This is because importer cannot use another company’s certificate to do clearance. To do import, importer must have its own certificate. So, by appointing the actual importer as certificate holder, the importer will be able to use the certificate for clearance process.
Then, is “Local Representation” practice is allowed in Mexico type approval? For those who are not familiar, local representation service is using the agency partner in Mexico to be the certificate holder. Well, local representation practice is possible. However, it’s not practical because first, the price we need to pay to make Mexico type approval certificate is not cheap, it’s relatively higher than other countries. Second, the issued certificate cannot be used by the importer to import the product, this can only be used for marketing purpose. Therefore, spending a huge amount to make a certificate which is not usable for import process felt like a waste of money.
Why We Care
As mentioned earlier, the price to create Mexico Type Approval is not cheap. That’s why we need to make sure that every process we take is correct, and according to the applicable rules. So, at the end of the process, the certificate issued can be usable for the importer. It can be used to release the product from customs without any hassle. Otherwise, it’ll be such a waste of money. Therefore, before starting the process it’s better to understand the business route from the manufacturer to importer. So, we can correctly decide which party is eligible to be certificate holder.