The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
The passage of The Ease of Doing Business and Efficient Government Service Delivery Act of 2018 will help improve the country’s ranking in the World Bank and International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) 2019 Doing Business Report, Trade and Industry Undersecretary Rowel Barba said.
Barba added the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) hopes that President Duterte will soon sign the legislation into law so it can be counted among the reforms implemented this year. The latest World Bank-IFC report covers the June 2017 to May 2018 period.
During the first quarter of the year, Congress passed the Ease of Doing Business and Efficient Government Service Delivery Bill that amended Republic Act 9485 or the Anti-Red Tape Act of 2007.
“It is still pending in Malacañang, and I think the Office of the Executive Secretary is asking for comments from other government agencies,” Barba said.
Barba mentioned that the Palace is seeking comments on a two-strike policy, that requires government offices to deliberate upon and issue permits in three, seven, or 20 days depending on the circumstance, upon complete submission of requirements or face penalties.
The legislation also provides sanctions to civil servants who will not be able to comply with the “3-7-20 rule”. First offense would be a six-month suspension and the second offense would be termination from service.
“Some people are worried that we might run out of government employees,” the DTI official said in Filipino.
Last week, DTI officials met with representatives from the world Bank and IFC, who were conducting a validation mission on the Philippine government’s reforms to ease doing business in the country.
The Philippines’ current ranking in the global report is 113th place after it slipped from 99th place.
The World bank-IFC report measures the ease of doing business in a given country through 11 indicators including Starting a Business, Dealing with Construction Permits, Getting Electricity, Registering Property, Getting Credit, Protecting Minority Investors, Paying Taxes, Trading across Borders, Enforcing Contracts, Resolving Insolvency, and Labor Market Regulation.
The government has also introduced a series of red-tape cutting measures to make it easier for investors to do business in the Philippines, Trade and Industry Secretary Ramon Lopez said.
He added these mechanisms were presented to the visiting representatives of the World Bank and International Finance Corp. (WB-IFC), who are in the process of writing the 2019 Doing Business Report. WB-IFC Doing Business topic team leaders, Nadine Abi Chakra and Nuno Filipe Mendes dos Santos, conducted a validation mission here to countercheck if the measures the Philippine government said it would put in place to ease doing business, are already in place.
Among the initiatives that the government has rolled out to make life for investors more convenient are the Company Registration System of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Single Window Transaction Project of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), and the One-Stop Shop for Business Permits in Quezon City.
Lopez explained that the measures implemented by the SEC include the automation of the business registration process. In the meantime, the BIR has made it easier for applicants to submit their requirements and has fast-tracked the process to obtain the Certificate of Registration and Authority.
For its part, the local government of Quezon City — the subject location in the Philippines for the 2019 Doing Business Report — has put the Business Permits and Licensing Office, the Zoning Office, the Treasurer’s Office, and the Bureau of Fire Protection in one location. The One-Stop Shop for Business Permit has eliminated the need for applicants to go to different offices for submission of requirements and getting their permits.
These measures cut the procedures of setting up a business from 16 steps down to 10, and the processing period from 28 days down to 16, the trade chief said.