ARTA director general Jeremiah Belgica
MANILA – The Anti-Red Tape Authority expects that the automation of services and processes in government agencies will help the country to achieve a higher score in this year’s Ease of Doing Business (EODB) Report of the World Bank.
In a Palace briefing Thursday, ARTA director general Jeremiah Belgica said the rollout of the TradeNet platform, the Central Business Portal (CBP), and setting up electronic business one-stop shop (e-BOSS) in local government units (LGUs) will significantly lift the country’s performance in Starting a Business and Trading Across Borders indices of the EODB Report.
“We ramp up compliance with the National Single Window, where we also have (an) automation program. We already have 80 regulatory government agencies that can use and enter this automated platform,” Belgica said.
Through TradeNet.gov.ph, importers and exporters can apply for their licensing, permits, and clearance online as government regulators are already linked to the system.
The ARTA and the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) also launched the CBP which reduces the processing time for business registration to three to four days from over 10 days.
The first phase of CBP features a unified application form for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), PhilHealth, Pag-IBIG, and Food and Drug Administration (FDA); online registration with SEC and BIR; online generation of certificate of registration for SEC and BIR; and online payment for BIR filing and registration fees.
It also processes online generation of tax identification number, employer numbers for Social Security System (SSS), PhilHealth, and Pag-IBIG; unified employee reporting module for SSS, PhilHealth, and Pag-IBIG; issuance of secondary license featuring FDA’s License to Operate for Center for Drugs; and online application for mayor’s permit with the local government of Quezon City and 17 other LGUs.
A Joint Memorandum Circular was also issued last month by ARTA, directing all LGUs to establish the e-BOSS before June 17 this year.
Belgica said 446 LGUs have already set up their e-BOSS.
Meanwhile, due to the pandemic, this year’s EODB Report by the World Bank will focus on EODB score instead of country ranking.
In the 2020 EODB Report, the Philippine score improved to 62.8 from 57.68 in the 2019 report, while the overall ranking jumped by 29 notches to rank 95 from 124th in Doing Business ranking. (PNA)
