CIBAC Briefing Papers (Red Tape)

Wednesday, 06 June 2007

Starting any business in the Philippines takes an average of 48 days while it takes another 197 days to get all the permits and licenses required by different government agencies and local government units. Worse, in getting through those labyrinthine processes, an investor has to unravel where to start and often shell out more cash on fees with no receipts, than the actual fees that go to the coffers of government. Excessive red tape in the processing of business-related papers has been pinpointed as one of the root causes behind the continued slide of the Philippines in its global competitiveness ranking. Red tape, which often results in astronomical costs and the waste of valuable time in doing business here, will be one of the key problems which the National Competitiveness Summit (NCS) on September 29 is set to tackle with specific actions already identified. No less than President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo instructed her Cabinet to reach Vietnam's number 99 rank in the ease of doing business. The Philippines is ranked 113th by the World Bank this year out of 155 countries in the ease of doing business. The most viable solution to address unreceipted costs, transparency, circuitous procedures, bribery and corruption point to streamlining, decentralizing and automating government frontline services. A shopping list of what must be done has been prepared. The measures include: identification of which agencies cause the most bottlenecks; streamlining and decentralization of business processes and putting them under one umbrella; dissemination of policies and procedures; review and immediate implementation of the e-Commerce Act as it applies to government; automation of business processes and link up agencies involved in business processes leading to paperless transactions; build an information technology based Philippine Business Registry that integrates the databases of both the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and harmonizes business registration, data requirements and payment systems; and overhaul Bureau of Customs processes and procedures and make them more transparent to plug revenue leakages . The list of things that can be done to reduce red tape in government soonest has been getting longer as more cases on the ground reached the working team that has been putting rhyme and reason on what must be done first. This is expected to grow even longer when the resulted of an anti-red tape and corruption workshop organized by the joint foreign chambers of commerce this week will be included in the anti-red tape action module.  Source: Abe P. Belena/Philexport News and Features/Sunnex

Last Updated ( Wednesday, 06 June 2007 )

 

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