Philippines eyes top 20 in ease of doing business

June 27, 2017

The Philippines is eyeing to be at the top 20 by 2020 in the World Bank-International Finance Corporation Doing Business Report. "You know, what we're really targeting is top 20, top 20 by 2020," Trade and Industry Secretary Ramon Lopez told reporters in Malacanang. The Philippines ranked 99th out of 190 economies in the 2017 World Bank-IFC Doing Business Report. Lopez said the administration is pushing for the automation of business registration. "So what we intend to do now, we are automating that and we wanna make it really less than one day approval," he said as he noted that in the issuance of business permits alone, it now takes two to three days from over 10 days, and the number of signatories has been down to two,” he said. With the automation, the procedures would be streamlined and "making registration very easy, even from mobile phones, especially for millennials who are getting into business," Lopez said. "If we can do that in less than one day, mobile enabled, then I think we can be in the top 20," he added. The World Bank-IFC is expected to release its new Doing Business Report later this year. Lopez admitted there could only be "slight improvement" in the ranking in the coming report. He said New Zealand, which is the top 1 in  ease of doing business is now extending technical assistance in order for the Philippines to improve its rank in Doing Business Report. The Aquino administration tried to be at least in the top third of global ranking on ease of doing business. While it failed to achieve its target, the ranking, however, significantly improved from 148th in 2010 to 103rd out of 189 economies in 2016. The World Bank-IFC's Doing Business project provides objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement across 190 economies and selected cities at the subnational and regional level. Launched in 2002, it looks at domestic small and medium-size companies and measures the regulations applying to them through their life cycle. The World Bank-IFC specifically has been using the Quezon City government as basis in ranking the Philippines. (Celerina Monte/DMS)