NEWS

By Bernie Cahiles-Magkilat

The Philippines has submitted a total of 55 reforms and 13 data correction points to the World Bank, which are expected to boost the country’s chances at moving up in this year’s Ease of Doing Business global ranking.

ARTA Director-General Jeremiah Belgica (FACEBOOK/MANILA BULLETIN FILE PHOTO)

This was bared during the virtual meeting of the Ease of Doing Business and Anti-Red Tape Advisory (EODB-ARTA) Council, which is chaired by Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez and vice-chair Anti-Red Tape Authority (ARTA) Director General Jeremiah Belgica.

At the meeting, Belgica presented updates on the World Bank’s initial assessment of the country’s Doing Business reforms for the 2021 report, which is set to be released by mid-March this year.

According to Belgica, the Philippines submitted a total of 55 reforms and 13 data correction points to the World Bank for their initial assessment.

“We are really hopeful that World Bank will recognize the submitted reforms already made especially with the Enforcing of Contracts and Registering Property. We know that there have been improvements but the results would depend on the measures and internal process of evaluation by WB,” said Belgica.

Since the Philippines dramatic climb to the 95th spot on the 2020 WB Ease of Doing (EODB) Survey, ARTA has targetted the 47th spot for the Philippines on the 2021 cycle of the survey.

In the last survey, the Philippines score improved in starting a business, dealing with construction permits, protecting minority investors, and paying taxes, but the country’s scores were unchanged from the previous year for the following categories: registering property, getting credit, trading across borders and enforcing contracts.

To further improve its current standing, ARTA is focusing on reforms on the Starting a Business indicator through the development of National Business One Stop Shop and Program National Effort on the Harmonization of Efficient Measures of Interrelated Agencies, both of which focus on reducing regulatory burden to the people by improving the agencies’ systems and processes.

During the Council Meeting, ARTA also presented the draft Joint Memorandum Circular for the onboarding of trade regulatory government agencies to the TradeNet, the National Single Window System that will allow for the online processing of import and export permits.

Last year, Belgica flagged the Registry of Deeds (ROD), an agency tasked to process the registration of real estate ownership, to simplify and hasten their service after receiving complaints that the processing of some applications take up to 100 days. An electronic database is implemented following Land Registration Authority’s (LRA) initiative to digitize all land titles.

On enforcing contracts, the Supreme Court’s efforts on the reforms to reduce the time and cost of resolving a standardized commercial dispute are also expected to boost the country’s score.

ARTA also directed all heads of government agencies including state universities, local government units, government-owned or -controlled corporations, and other government instrumentalities in the Philippines and abroad providing services covering business and non-business related transactions to designate a Committee on Anti-Red Tape (CART).

Belgian also discussed results from its surprise inspections of the Metro Manila LGUs’ business one-stop shops and of other government offices upon receiving reports on inefficiencies from concerned citizens.

In 2020, the Philippines dramatically moved up 29 notches to finish 95th from 124th out of 190 countries in the global EODB ranking, making it to the top three high-jumpers globally and the most improved in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) both in rank and score.

Based on the WB Doing Business 2020, a World Bank Group flagship publication, the Philippines improved in three areas: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, and protecting minority investors. Starting a business was made easier by abolishing the minimum capital requirement for domestic companies. Furthermore, streamlining the process for obtaining an occupancy certificate was improved in securing construction permits.

The WB Doing Business report measures aspects of business regulation and their implications for firm establishment and operations. It presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 190 economies.

Source: Manila Bulletin