Reforms help make doing business in PH, region easier

Economies of the East Asia and Pacific region are steadily making progress to ease the process of doing business, according to the World Bank’s annual ease-of-doing-business report.

Doing Business 2017: Equal Opportunity for All, released recently, found that more than two-thirds of the region’s 25 economies implemented 45 reforms in the past year to make it easier to do business, compared to 28 reforms the previous year.

Four economies in the East Asia and Pacific region ranked among the top 10 economies globally in the Doing Business rankings. These were New Zealand at No. 1, followed by Singapore (2), Hong Kong SAR, China (4) and the Republic of Korea (5).

Notably, two economies from the region, Brunei Darussalam and Indonesia, were among this year’s top 10 improvers in the world.

Indonesia, which implemented seven reforms during the past year, made starting a business easier by, among others, abolishing the minimum capital requirement for small and medium-size enterprises and by encouraging the use of an online system to reserve company names. As a result, it now takes 22 days to start a business in Jakarta, compared with 47 days previously.

Brunei Darussalam, which implemented six reforms in the past year, increased the reliability of power supply by introducing an automatic energy management system for the monitoring of outages and the restoration of service.

Additionally, businesses can now get electricity faster due to the utility in Brunei Darussalam streamlining the processes of reviewing applications. As a result, a business can get connected to the grid in 35 days, compared to 56 days previously.

Vanuatu, which implemented four reforms, made starting a business easier by removing registration requirements and digitizing the company register.

“New reforms tackling multiple barriers to business in the East Asia and Pacific region are the stepping stones to enhance business activity. Despite marked improvements, economies in the region still have improvements to make in order to ease the business climate for local entrepreneurs,” said Rita Ramalho, manager of the Doing Business project.

The Philippines has improved the transparency of building regulations. It has also made paying taxes easier by introducing an online system for filing and paying health contributions and by allowing for online corporate income tax and VAT returns to be completed offline.

“Authorities have worked toward simplifying business regulations in the Philippines,” said Mara Warwick, World Bank country director for the Philippines. “This is important for the economy to ensure small and medium enterprises can flourish and create jobs for millions of Filipinos.”

Challenges remain particularly in the areas of Starting a Business, Protecting Minority Investors and Enforcing Contracts. For example, it takes 28 days to start a business in the Philippines, compared to 21 days on average at the global level.

This year, for the first time, Doing Business includes a gender dimension in three of the topics covered: Starting a business, registering property and enforcing contracts. The report found that in those areas, few East Asia and Pacific economies had gender barriers. The exceptions included Malaysia and Brunei Darussalam, where extra procedures were required for married women to start a business.

The “paying taxes” indicator has been expanded to cover post-filing processes such as tax audits and VAT refund. Many East Asia and Pacific economies performed well in these areas, although there were exceptions. Tax audit compliance time, for example, was high in Thailand and Timor-Leste and compliance with a VAT refund process was time-consuming in Tonga and Fiji.
The full report and accompanying data are made available by the World Bank at www.doingbusiness.org