Parañaque, DTI connect for online registration

MANILA, Philippines — In an attempt to ease the processing of business permits, the Parañaque City government has connected to the database of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), the first local government unit in the country to do so.

The city government would be able to verify the status of permits for the city’s more than 20,000 businesses by linking to the DTI’s Business Name Registration System Next Generation online facility.

This process could help the city government in checking real-time if a business name is valid, Mayor Edwin Olivarez said.

This partnership with DTI would help the city government in simplifying business registration by doing things online as part of measures to curb the spread of COVID-19 while Metro Manila is still under general community quarantine, he added.

Olivarez said the process would benefit sole proprietorship businesses in particular.

“The city government, through the Business Permits and Licensing Office, has been consistently implementing e-governance solutions to ease business registration especially for micro, small, and medium enterprises,” he said in a statement.

It would also be able to notify business owners if their business name registration is about to expire or is due for renewal.

DTI Secretary Ramon Lopez said the city government’s linkage to the agency’s online database “complements the department’s common agenda to achieve an end-to-end online business registration in the Philippines. “