The Global Economy and Business

According to Minerva Yap, coordinator of the National economic Research and Business Assistance Center (NERBAC) of the Dept. of Trade and Industry, presently, various agencies in the country have different processes related to business registration. It runs a system of their own, independent from all other systems of other agencies.

“The Philippines Business Registry (PBR) intends to put together common information from the various databases of agencies to streamline registration requirements and processes,” Yap added.

It will also harmonize business registration by assigning a unique Philippine Business Number (PBN) that serves as the identification key of each registered business entity to contract and avail of various good and services in the country.

“This will actually help improve the government’s regulatory and promotional functions,” the NERBAC coordinator said.

The PBR will not only assure faster business registration, the single-window online processing system facilitates paperless transactions and saves processing cost and time.

Implementation and status of the PBR

Implementation of the PBR project was done in phases. Phase-1 established the Business Registry and business application infrastructure that was done in December 2007.

Phase-2 instituted and established the Business Portal with all identified e-ready government agency systems that were fully interfaced with the PBR system. That was done in October 2008. This phase permitted the online application of business with SSS, PhilHealth and PAG-IBIG.

It also enabled the online filing of applications for licenses and clearances with industry-specific agencies, as well as online filing of requests for business dissolution.

All government agencies involved with business registration-related transactions form part of the PBR. Specifically, these are; the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) for the registration of partnerships and corporations while DTI and its bureaus for different business-related systems and databases.

The Bureau of Trade Regulation and Consumer Protection for the registration of the business name thru the web-enabled business name registration system and the Board of Investments (BOI) for investment projects registration thru the Integrated Registration System (IRS).

Other agencies include the Bureau of Domestic Trade, Intellectual Property Office-Phils; BIR, SSS, PhilHealth, Pag-ibig and PEZA; DOF, BOC, Bureau of Treasury (BTR) and the CDA.

Based on EO 587 dated Dec. 8, 2006, the DTI has been directed to set up and administer the PBR project in coordination with all other concerned agencies.

In its November 2009 report, DTI said nineteen (19) out of the 28 stakeholders contacted have signed the memorandum of agreement that formalizes the commitments of the PBR Inter-Agency Consultative Committee that included DTI, BIR, CDA, DILG, Pag-ibig, LMP, LCP, PCCI, SSS and 10 other cities in Metro Manila.

According to DTI-7, the NERBA Centers and other DTI offices drafted the order for the adoption of the PBR Unified Printable Form. At least 20 LGUs in the country accepted the form as an alternative way to participate in the PBR project.

This form was also used as the basis of the TWG of the standard business registration procedure to standardize business registration forms across the 16 NCR cities at the initial stage of the project.

To date, the data from DTI, SEC and CDA already form part of the business registry. Business registered under the PBR can already be searched @ www.business.gov.ph that began in January 2010.

The SEC is now in the bidding process for the improvement of a new registration system while the CDA has issued a policy for its offices nationwide to use PBR in the re-registration of cooperatives.

Within the 1st quarter of 2010, BIR e-Reg System is in the process of completing its source code and other requirements to complete the integration improvement with the Philippine Business Registry.

Lastly, the design and development of interface with other permit/license issuing agencies is on-going.

DTI-7 reported that out of 55 permit/issuing agencies it contacted, only 34 responded. Out of these, 10 are e-ready; two (2) are non-e-ready and four (4) will just be accessing the reports generation module of the PBR.

DTI continued that it deployed 26 information kiosks called PBR Zones in all 17 NCR LGUs; DTI-NCR; DTI-Head office and at other DTI offices, PTIC and BOI.

Lastly, strengthening of the NERBAC’s IT infrastructure is almost complete which will become the PBR project centers in the Philippines, Yap concluded. (PIA-7/MBCN)

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