- Environment
The Basic Environmental Law of 1999 establishes the fundamental and specific principles applicable to the environment, the objectives and measures to be developed as well as the fundamental concepts and instruments and mechanisms of environmental policy, namely:
- Prior licensing of all activities that are potentially or actually polluting or likely to affect the landscape;
- Prior assessment of the impact caused by human activity;
- The environmental audit system;
- The national environmental data and information system;
- The supervision and inspection system;
- The establishment of fees to be applied for the use of natural resources and environmental components, as well as for the rejection of effluents;
- The establishment of sanctions for non-compliance with environmental legislation.
Environmental components are also regulated: water, living soil and subsoil, flora, fauna and air.
Ecological offenses include the prohibition of polluting or contaminating, the prohibition of harmful imports, water pollution, chemical pollution and air pollution.
The Investment Code requires that, for investment projects likely to produce environmental risks, the respective application dossier must include an Environmental Impact Study (EIA).
- Environmental impact assessment
Under the terms of the 1999 Basic Environmental Law, plans, projects, work and actions that may affect the environment, the territory and the quality of life of populations, whether under public or private responsibility and initiative, must respect environmental standards and must be accompanied by an EIA.
- Licensing
The issuance of environmental licenses follows that of other licenses legally required for each activity, in accordance with the 1999 Regulation on the EIA process.
- Waste
According to the Environmental Bases Law of 1999, the emission, transport and final destination of waste and effluents are subject to prior authorization, duly certified by a transport guide stating their origin and destination. The principles and standards applicable to the management of packaging, products and articles and packaging waste were approved in 2003, which establish an Environmental Impact Tax (TIA), to be paid by all national and foreign producers importing packaging, products and articles, in accordance with the following criteria:
- Dimension;
- Volume and/or weight;
- Type of material used, namely paper, glass, plastic, metal and others.
- Competent entities
The entity responsible for environmental management is the Government body that directs the implementation of environmental policy and which is currently called the Ministry of Infrastructure, Natural Resources and Environment. It is also up to you to prepare and make public the list of actions for which EIA is required. Approval of the EIA is an essential condition for licensing works.
- Urbanism
The General Regulation on Urban Buildings is still the one approved in 1959. The rules relating to the municipal licensing process for private works, including the mandatory regime to which all civil construction works, reconstruction, expansion, alteration, repair or demolition of buildings and, as well, work that involves changing the local topography within the urban perimeter and rural protection zones established for the council headquarters and for other locations subject by law to an urbanization and expansion plan, and buildings of an industrial nature or for collective use, as well as their reconstruction, expansion, alteration, repair or demolition, whatever their location.
- Commercial defense
The Customs Code of São Tomé and Príncipe provides that goods originating in foreign countries that are imported into the national customs territory for consumption or productive use or exported are classified in accordance with the Schedule of Import and Export Duties and Taxes , being subject to customs duties as well as other charges provided for in the code.
The form for the customs declaration of goods is the Single Customs Declaration (DAU) in force since 2010.
The table of fees due for the import of goods, to be charged by Customs, was last changed in 2005.