DTI sees rebound in ‘ease of doing business’ survey

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) wants to recover the momentum it lost last year in terms of the ease of doing business, following a report from World Bank that ranked the country in the lower half of the list.

In a press briefing on Monday, Trade Undersecretary Rowel Barba said that they would be “happy” if they could at least regain the 14 notches the country dropped in the 2018 World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business (EODB) report.

EODB measures aspects of business regulations and their implications on business operations based on 10 indicators, including starting a business, enforcing contracts and dealing with construction permits.

“For this cycle, we just want to improve the previous ranking of 113th. If we could get the previous ranking [in the EODB report released in 2017], we’d already be happy in the meantime,” he said in a mix of English and Filipino.

Out of 190 countries covered in the report, the Philippines ranked 113th, dropping from its 99th place in 2016. Barba said that a team from the World Bank arrived in the country last week to validate reforms for the 2019 cycle of the EODB report.

While the report itself said that last year’s ranking couldn’t be compared to that of 2016 given changes in the methodology, the government has been pursuing reforms to climb back in rankings.

Some reforms have already been made, especially in Quezon City, which serves as the main basis for EODB’s findings, officials said. However, some are still under way, especially those that require legislative action.

One of these bills is the Ease of Doing Business and Efficient Government Service Delivery Act of 2018, which is awaiting approval of Malacañang. —ROY STEPHEN CANIVEL