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MANILA, Philippines–Twelve

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government agencies have committed to implement reforms meant to help improve the ease of doing business in the Philippines as the country seeks to boost not only its rankings in global competitiveness reports, but also the capacity of the local micro, small- and medium-sized enterprises.

The reforms would primarily address two main problem areas—starting a business and paying taxes—as identified in many global competitiveness reports such as the the Ease of Doing Business Report by the World Bank-International Finance Corp., according to Guillermo M. Luz, co-chair for the private sector of the National Competitivenes Council (NCC).

According to Luz, the reforms would significantly cut the processes involved in starting a business to only six steps and eight days from the existing set-up requiring 16 steps and 34 days. E-government initiatives for the accessible and convenient online transactions for payroll-related payments to Philippine Health Insurance Corp. and Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag-IBIG) will also reduce the number of payments from 36 to 13 a year.

“These game changers are effective beginning this month in the head offices of the partner agencies and Quezon City and will soon spread across the country,” Luz said.

“This is a big leap forward in terms of ease of doing business. We’ve been working on this for many years and we’ve seen the improvements in rankings. Over the past five years, we’ve seen a 53-place improvement in our Ease of Doing Business [rank]. We’ve seen 33 notches improvements on the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report; a 49-step improvement in the Corruption Perceptions Index, and 33-step improvement in the Economic Freedom Index,” added Trade Secretary Gregory L. Domingo.

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