The government will roll out by the end of this year “TradeNet,” an integrated online system to process import permits across over 60 agencies, as part of ongoing efforts to further improve the ease of doing business in the country, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said.
“The government is now consolidating all requirements involving applications for imports to drastically shorten the process and make this new system available online,” Dominguez said in a statement.
“We are working very closely with the Department of Information and Communications Technology on this effort. We have gotten the majority of the different units to agree that if it is approved by one, it should be basically approved by all,” Dominguez added.
Acknowledging that securing an import permit was “tedious” as it requires approvals from 66 government agencies on top of 10 economic zones, Dominguez said he had “directed Department of Finance officials to help coordinate the effort of cutting red tape within the bureaucracy starting with the import requirements.”
Finance Undersecretary Gil S. Beltran, who is also the DOF’s anti-red tape czar, said in a report to Dominguez that TradeNet would be “available soon.”
“We have identified all essential activities and action items needed in preparation for the production roll out of the TradeNet system,” Beltran said.
Also, “the DOF and DICT are currently working on making the Philippine Business Data Bank (PBDB) fully operational down to the local government level to drastically cut the red tape in business registrations,” Beltran added.
According to Beltran, the PBDB will be eventually connected to the Asean Single Window through TradeNet by December.
“With TradeNet, the application process for imports and exports would be dramatically reduced from months to only a week or even less,” Beltran said.
“The TradeNet accreditation module is designed to consolidate the database of all agencies when they accredit traders for import and export,” he said. —BEN O. DE VERA