THE Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is hoping to return to its top 100 ranking on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business (EDB) list for 2019 after falling 14 places in 2018.
In a briefing at the Board of Investments, DTI Undersecretary for EDB Rowel S. Barba said Monday that a team from the World Bank arrived last week to validate some of the country’s reform programs in preparation for the 2019 EDB ranking.
Mr. Barba said he would be “happy” to recover the 2017 ranking of 99th.
“We hope to improve on the rankings and that the reforms are institutionalized,” he added.
The reforms include adopting automating business-registration transactions and one-stop shops for business permits.
Pending EDB legislation requires all government offices and agencies, including local government units, to reduce processing time for business permits and official documents.
“We’re confident that it will be passed by Congress this year,” Mr. Barba told reporters.
However, he said Congressional approval may miss the next World Bank ranking cycle, which covers the period June 2017 to May 2018.
The EDB bill calls for the reduction of processing time of “simple” transactions to a maximum of three days; “complex” transactions have a seven-day deadline; and “highly-technical” applications 20 days.
Failure to do so will be punished with suspensions of 30 days without pay for a first offense and a three-month suspension without pay for a second offense.
A third offense carries the penalties of dismissal and disqualification from holding public office; forfeiture of civil service eligibility and retirement benefits; and one to six years’ imprisonment.
Mr. Barba noted that the government continues to target a top 20% EDB ranking by the time it steps down.
In the World Bank’s Doing Business 2018 report released in October, the Philippines was 113th among 190 economies, down from 99th in 2017 — although the report noted that changes in method for compiling the list made it impossible to directly compare the two reports. — Janina C. Lim
