Law on inland waters navigation of 1993.

This Law consisting of 23 articles aims at providing for the navigation in inland waters and establishes a Technical Advisory Committee with the following main tasks (i) make recommendations to the Minister of Transportation with regard to licensing applications for mechanically managed ships, ferryboats, trailers, or riverboats, whatever the method of its operation or the purpose of its use, with a tonnage of ten tons or more, and public boats and sailboats, whose length exceeds ten meters, or whose tonnage is ten tons or more; and (ii) submit recommendations and reports to the Minister regarding renewal of licenses. Article 9 deals with procedures to obtain the license. As for the local authorities and their powers, each locality shall have the following powers (i) the license to operate boats for hire for the transport of passengers or goods or to carry out any other commercial activity related to the operation of boats on the banks of rivers, after the applicant submits a technical validity certificate to the auxiliaries of the authority; (ii) defining public places for the passage of boats in coordination with the authority from the technical point of view; (iii) determining the terminals of berthing, linking, loading or unloading of vessels in coordination with the authority from the technical point of view; and (iv) impose and determine the fees for licensing boats.
The Inland River Navigation Authority at the Ministry of Transport is responsible for (i) registering the boats; (ii) keeping the general register of the boats in which the vessels operating in inland river navigation are registered; and (iii) may refuse to register a vessel that bears the name of another one, or a name similar to it, if it is possible that this similarity may lead to confusion. Article 12 regards inspections and related procedures. Article 14 lists the data that shall be recorded in the register. If any modification occurs in any of the data contained in the registry, the owner of the vessel must, within a month from the date of that amendment, submit a request to the registrar to amend the registry (art.16). The Minister of Transportation, in consultation with the Minister of Finance and National Economy, may specify the fees to be paid in relation to any of the procedures stipulated in this Law (art.20).