The government on Tuesday unveiled reforms that aim to cut the process of starting a business to six steps in eight days from the existing 16 steps in 34 days.
The government also announced e-government initiatives for accessible and convenient online transactions for payroll-related payments to Philhealth and Pag-IBIG, reducing the number of payments from 36 to 13 per year.
Officials of Finance, Trade and Local Government Departments, National Competitiveness Council and nine other institutions launched the new reforms work under the NCC’s Gameplan 3.0.
Gameplan 3.0 streamlines and simplifies government processes across 10 transactions related to the “Ease of Doing Business” as measured annually by the World Bank and International Finance Corp.
“We are proud to show how it’s clearly more fun, and way easier, to do business in the Philippines. This is a whole-of-government approach with 11 other partners—I thank all of them for their hard work in this continuous process of making the country a better place to do business in. Together, we are making the business of realizing dreams in the Philippines ever easier,” said Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima.
The package of reforms involving starting a business include merging several steps together to create single-window applications powered by more interconnectivity across IT systems of different agencies, the removal of several outdated procedures and the introduction of enhanced one-stop-shop procedures in local government units.
These changes involved coordination and partnership across government agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, Bureau of Internal Revenue, Social Security System, Pag-IBIG, PhilHealth and the local government unit Quezon City.
The net effect is that the time it will take to incorporate new corporations, partnerships and non-stock corporations at the Securities and Exchange Commission will be reduced from 16 steps and 34 days to 6 steps and 8 days.
Initial roll-out of the reforms will begin at SEC’s Manila office starting this month, where most companies are incorporated. Roll-outs will continue in succeeding months across all SEC offices and a full on-line system will be made available next year.
Meanwhile, payroll-related payments to Pag-IBIG and PhilHealth are being moved online for companies employing more than 10 employees.
Payments to SSS have already been moved online for companies with more than 10 employees since last year. Online banking facilities at Land Bank of the Philippines and the Development Bank of the Philippines which require no minimum average daily balance for these transactions are being made available for enterprises.
This will reduce the number of payments from 36 to 13 per year, representing major time and cost savings for businesses and entrepreneurs.
“We continue to be encouraged by reforms that will make our business registration faster, simpler, more efficient and more transparent. DTI is committed to sustaining the momentum to achieve improved competitiveness and encourage inclusive growth. This ties in nicely as well with our role to boost the development of micro, small and medium enterprises. These reforms will motivate SMEs to incorporate when they see the need to do so, as they start or run their businesses,” said Trade Secretary and NCC co-chairman Gregory Domingo.