Filipino entrepreneurs may now register new businesses or renew their registration in one or two days with the issuance of a new joint memorandum circular (JMC).
The JMC, released by the Departments of Trade and Industry (DTI) and Information and Communication Technology (DICT), directs cities and municipalities to streamline their business permit and licensing systems (BPLS).
“Local government units [LGUs] are directed to streamline business permits and licensing systems, with processing time cut to two days for new business registration and one day for renewals,” the National Competitiveness Council (NCC) said on Tuesday.
“The number of procedures for registration has been set at a maximum of three steps for both new applicants and renewals,” it added.
The NCC added that all LGUs are directed to use a unified form in print and electronic form.
These will only have two signatories—mayor and treasurer/business permits and licensing head or their alternates.
The JMC also recommends LGUs to automate and computerize business transactions to hasten their frontline services.
“It will significantly eliminate corruption in the bureaucracy, as it will reduce personal or face-to-face interaction,” the NCC said.
If LGUs comply, the NCC believes such will provide significant boost to the country’s competitiveness ranking in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business (EODB).
The 2016 EODB showed the country’s ranking slide to 103rd worldwide on account of the lack of innovations under “starting a business.”
The country’s ranking in starting a business declined to 165th place from 157th in the 2015 EODB.
“[We] believe that automation of government transactions will bring substantial improvement in terms of speed and efficiency of rendering services, and will make it possible for LGUs to achieve one-day business registration,” the NCC said.
In the 2016 Doing Business report released in October 2015, the Philippines was the Asean country that registered the largest decline in the rankings.
Singapore retained its No. 1 ranking for the 10th consecutive year, while Hong Kong maintained is fifth ranking overall.
Vietnam was considered among this year’s best performers, which saw its ranking improve to 90th in the 2016 report from 93rd in the previous year.
For the 2016 report, the country introduced only one improvement in its business processes, which is to make it easier to start a business by expediting the process of issuing an employer registration number.
The government was able to do this by streamlining communications between the Security and Exchange Commission and Social Security System.