THE TRADE and Interior departments have agreed to their coordinate efforts to create the Local Investments and Incentives Code in a bid to make local government units (LGU) nationwide business-friendly, the Trade department said in a statement on Friday.
As part of the agreement, the Board of Investments, an attached agency of the Trade department, will also be helping LGUs come up with investment priority areas and promotion strategies as the board provides investment- and business-related capacity-building and technical assistance programs.
Training and promotion campaigns will focus on conducting investment conferences, business-matching sessions, and inbound and outbound investment missions.
The Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), for its part, will be urging all LGUs to reform cumbersome business licensing and registration procedures as the country enhances its global competitiveness.
“This is consistent in making LGUs investment-friendly. We will coordinate the improvements in the issuance of business permits and establishing business at the local level, so that improvements will not be for individual LGUs alone but for all of them at the same time,” Mr. Robredo said in a telephone interview.
“Processing business permits has always been a problem. We plan to appoint a local investment officer in every LGU to improve [this procedure],” he added.
The DILG is also tasked to design and implement a system to monitor the development of the code and resolve possible hindrances to the capacity-building measures for the LGUs.
The regional offices of both departments will be involved in the nationwide initiative.
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Source: Business World, Oct. 21, 2011
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