The government is finalizing a faster system for import procedures in a bid to cut red tape and improve the ease of doing business in the country, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said Monday.
Dominguez said the new security import applications would involve over 60 agencies. He said the government was consolidating all requirements involving applications for imports to drastically shorten the process and make this new system available online.
“We are working very closely with the Department of Information and Communications Technology on this effort. We have gotten the majority of the different units to already agree that if it is approved by one, it should be basically approved by all,” Dominguez said.
Dominguez said he was aware that applying for import permits involved a tedious process that would require approvals from as many as 60 different government agencies.
Finance Undersecretary Gil Beltran said an online platform now being finalized by the DOF with other government agencies to modernize and fast-track the processing of import and export permits could be available soon.
This single platform dubbed TradeNet aims to connect 66 agencies and 10 economic zones involved in approving import and export permits.
“We have identified all essential activities and action items needed in preparation for the production rollout of the TradeNet system,” Beltran said.
Beltran said the DOF and DICT were currently working on making the Philippine Business Data Bank fully operational down to the local government level to drastically cut red tape in business registrations.
A dry run of the PBDB was conducted on Aug. 14 at the Department of Trade and Industry, which already has its application program interface for the business registry up and running.
PBDB was launched at the 5th Annual Regional Competitiveness Summit at the Philippine International Convention Center in Manila on Aug. 16 to introduce the system to local government units and encourage them to link up with the data bank.
Beltran, who is the DOFs anti-red tape czar, said the TradeNet program aimed to eventually connect the online portal to the Asean Single Window before yearend.
With TradeNet, Beltran said the application process for imports and exports would be dramatically reduced from months to only a week or even less.
Beltran said the target was to integrate TradeNet’s activities with the ASW and “go live by December 2017.”