THE QUEZON City government agreed to simplify its business permit and licensing system (BPLS) and construction permit approval next year as part of its commitment to help improve the country’s overall competitiveness, the Trade department said in a statement yesterday.
The agreement came following a meeting of the National Competitiveness Council (NCC) with Quezon City Mayor Herbert M. Bautista and officials from the International Finance Corp. (IFC), a private investment arm of the World Bank, last Friday.
Currently, securing a business permit in Quezon City takes 15 steps over the course of 35 days to accomplish, while a construction permit involves 30 steps and 85 days to secure.
“Turfing should be eliminated and agencies should coordinate to improve [business licensing]processes,” the mayor said in a statement, explaining the root of the local government’s inefficiencies.
The cited process for businesses, however, already considers the national requirements and registrations an applicant must go through before going to the Quezon City Hall to secure a permit for an establishment.
“Based on the parameters set by the IFC and World Bank for their Doing Business study, securing a business permit must consider all the national and local requirements,” Garry C. Domingo, Quezon City’s Business Process and Licensing Office head, explained in a telephone interview yesterday.
“Otherwise, Quezon City already has a Business One-Stop Shop (BOSS) which cut down the process for securing a business permit to three steps from 12,” he continued.
In the Quezon City government Web site, one reads that the one-stop shop has reduced the number of forms, visits, face-to-face interactions and permit processing time.
With the new system, applicants are only required to visit the business office once to submit one form versus the old process’ eight forms which required eight visits. Face-to-face transactions, meanwhile, have been reduced to seven from 18.
Finally, the waiting time for the permit could be as fast as 24 hours for low-risk businesses without inspection requirements or nine days for those needing inspection. This is still shorter than the previous minimum processing time of 18 days.
Neverthless, the city’s mayor has made plans to issue an executive order or approve an ordinance to pursue further simplification, the statement said.
The local government will also establish a dedicated inspection team to facilitate the processing of several other permits often required of businesses.
Quezon City was the chosen sample for IFC’s latest Doing Business Survey. The city had 59,712 registered business establishments, one of the largest in the country, as of Nov. 9, 2011, according to its Web site.
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By: Eliza J. Diaz
Source: Business World, Nov. 22, 2011
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