The National Competitiveness Council and the British Embassy signed Tuesday a technical assistance grant through the Asia Pacific Bilateral Program Fund to quantify costs saved through Project Repeal, a move expected to entice more entrepreneurs to invest in the Philippines.
The assistance will be used for the development, pilot-testing and initial roll-out of the Standard Cost Model for Project Repeal in a bid to come up with a systematic way of determining the savings brought about by reduced cost of compliance for businesses by streamlining rules and regulations.
Signatories to the agreement—UK Ambassador to the Philippines Asif Ahmad, Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez and NCC private sector co-chairman Guillermo Luz—agreed that the project would serve to improve competitiveness by identifing ways to optimize government processes.
“Our goal is reducing the cost of compliance by reducing time and lowering the cost of doing business in the Philippines. Such will put weight on our quest for improved ranking on world competitiveness,” said Luz.
Red tape is among the top concerns that dampen business confidence and holds back the Philippine’s overall competitiveness. The NCC’s Project Repeal, an initiative that drew inspiration from UK’s Red Tape Challenge, was initiated as a government-wide deregulation system that addresses the growing need for a wider effort to cut red tape across agencies and to facilitate an efficient government regulatory environment.