Government vows key reforms in ease of doing business

MANILA, Philippines — The government has vowed to accelerate key reforms to improve the ease of doing business following the country’s 14-notch drop in the latest Doing Business Report of the World Bank.

Trade Secretary and National Competitiveness Council (NCC) chair Ramon Lopez said yesterday the country remains bullish at being able to leapfrog in the Doing Business Report rankings before the Duterte administration ends its term as reforms are being lined up to simplify doing business.

Lopez, however, has down-scaled the earlier target of moving up within the top 20 of the World Bank’s global ranking by 2020, opting to settle within the top 20 percent instead.

For the Doing Business Report, which ranks 190 economies globally, the Philippines will have to be ranked at least 38th to be within the top 20 percent.

“We are targeting to be at the top 20 percent to be more realistic. At least before the Duterte administration steps down, we should be hitting that number. Achieving that by 2020 is an ambitious target but we will still try to do it, but at the latest 2022,” Lopez said.

The Philippines suffered a 14-notch decline to 113th place in the latest Doing Business Report, from last year’s 99th spot.

On the distance to frontier metric basis, however, the Philippines’ score saw an improvement as it went from 58.32 to 58.74.

though our ranking is 113th, investments do keep on coming at the end of the day. Bu that doesn’t mean we won’t improve because it’s one of the factors to consider,” he said.

“But frankly, they are attracted more by the demographics, economic growth, performance of the country and that’s the reason so far why we are registering positive 33 to 36 percent in investments growth. We believe confidence of investors is there, whether local or foreign,” Lopez added.

Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) chair Arsenio Balisacan, for his part, said the latest drop in rankings of the Philippines is a “sobering account of our performance in attracting new investors and putting up new businesses in the country.”

“We in PCC push for synergies in streamlining procedures, cutting down the processes to encourage businesses, and opening the market to more players to reach a level playing field,” Balisacan said.

“The competition law is friendly to both big businesses who are well-positioned in the market and the emerging ones. We will work together with the private and public sector to boost competition and allow new businesses to get a fair shot at entering and thriving in the market,” he added.

In order to improve the country’s ranking, government agencies has identified key legislations to make doing business in the country much simpler.

Among these is the amendment of the Corporation Code to allow for single person corporations and eliminate minimum capital requirements and significantly shortening and automating the incorporation process in the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Likewise, the need to pass the new Expanded Anti-Red Tape Act in order to legislate time periods for the issuance of government permits and licenses has also been cited.

Meanwhile, several reforms in various government agencies are also being lined up to further accelerate the easing of doing business in the country.

The Philippine Business Registry, an online system for entrepreneurs to register corporations and single proprietorships and apply for licenses, will be operational this year, while the National Single Window will be launched by the government on Dec. 30, using the TradeNet platform to automate import and export application processes.

The Philippine Business Data Bank, a database of all business enterprises, is also being developed in a partnership between DTI, SEC, Department of Finance, Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), Cooperative Development Authority, and Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) to enable government to verify the identity and licenses of corporations and single proprietorships bidding for government projects, supplies and services.

The Credit Information Corp. (CIC), for its part, will set up an automated credit information system in accordance with RA 9510, a law requiring financial institutions to submit credit information to the CIC, which will make the data available to all lenders.