DOF exec confirms roll-out of single platform for traders

MANILA -- After a successful pilot-testing last July, the Philippines is ready to link with trade facilitation platforms of other countries in the Association of Southeast Asian (ASEAN) by December.

Finance Undersecretary Gil Beltran told reporters recently that the pilot-testing last July of Tradenet, a single window platform to be connected with other ASEAN countries, is “successful”.

“We were able to send and receive documents so by December we will go online and we will interconnect with other single window,” he said.

Beltran said testing continues until now “to make sure that there will be no foul ups before we interconnect.”

He said the system was developed by local experts, thus, the government saved around 16-17 percent from the development of the software and its maintenance in the future compared to buying it from a private company.

“It is our own software. We developed it and we don’t have to pay a high-end supplier for the yearly use of the software,” he said.

Beltran said cyber security safeguards have been put in place to ensure that the system will remain efficient and cannot be easily hacked.

He said 66 state agencies and 10 economic zones will be connected to the system, although there are additional government offices that indicated interest to be connected in the system.

“We are now at agency number 43. We are now trying to get their procedures so that we can develop the program for them so they can start accessing the system,” he said.

The Department of Finance (DOF) official said local government units (LGUs) are not part of port regulators but the Finance department is gathering all business data to check if the business entities are paying taxes and are registered with the necessary agencies. (PNA)