DOF, DICT, DILG launch online portal to streamline business registrations

December 4, 2017

The departments of finance, information technology and interior and local government launched Monday a digital platform to streamline application and renewal of business permits through online sharing of information by government agencies involved in this process.

Finance Undersecretary Gil Beltran said the launching of the Philippine Business Data Bank (PBDB) system is among the initiatives of the Department of Finance (DOF) as lead agency of the government’s anti-red tape program to improve the ease of doing business in the country.

Beltran said the PBDB will also involve the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), which chairs the National Competitiveness Council (NCC), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the country’s economic zones and over 1,600 local government units).

“With the PBDB, government agencies can readily access data on a particular business, eliminating the need for business owners to bring numerous documentary requirements when transacting with the government,” Beltran said.

The PBDB is a DOF project under its anti-red tape program headed by Beltran, and was developed by a team from the Advanced Science and Technology Institute of the Department of Science and Technology.  The system will be managed by the Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT).

Through the PBDB, government agencies would be able to verify the existence of a business entity using a single reference document. The information in the PBDB database will initially be provided by the DTI, SEC, the Cooperatives Development Authority and local government units, starting with Quezon City.

The PBDB will include business data of economic locators in the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) and the other ecozones across the country.

The PBDB would also allow the public to verify the existence of a specific business entity, which the system would be able to generate by accessing data from various sources.

Information shared in the PBDB system covers data that businesses have already made public as contained in their respective business permits that are required to be displayed in a conspicuous area in their place of business, the DICT said.

According to the DICT, the verification of a specific business entity is limited to exact name searches, which prevents users from resorting to random searches of phishing.

DOF’s technology modernization architect Dennis Reyes said the TradeNet platform, which will also serve as the Philippines’ link to the ASEAN Single Window gateway, will be up and running by the end of the year and will later place onboard a total of 66 government agencies “progressively over the course of the next two to three years.”

Beltran has said that  TradeNet.gov.ph  will allow traders  to use the system to apply for import and export permits initially for rice,  sugar,  used motor vehicles,  chemicals (toluene),  frozen meat  medicines (for humans, animals or fish) and  cured tobacco. DMS