DTI to implement paperless business registration system this year
Posted on August 27th, 2010
The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) announced that it will finally implement its plan that took four years in inception, of a paperless business registration system. Program manager of DTI’s Philippine Business Registry (PBR), Whilner Morales, said the paperless business registration system would be implemented both in the local and national levels. “Anybody can register a business anywhere using the power of the internet,” he said.
Morales said the idea of the paperless registration was to streamline the process and reduce the cost of doing business, cut down red tape, as well as to promote a paperless environment in the government.
It was actually in 2006 when the PBR conceptualized via Executive Order 587, which mandated the DTI and other government agencies and the local government to implement the paperless business registration system. Being paperless, Morales said the PBR would eliminate the “face-to-face” factor, promote server-to-server integration, and eliminate geographical boundaries.
“At its minimum, the PBR will address the repetitive submission with multiple copies of the same documents to different agencies. It will facilitate a seamless transactional environment for business registration and development across the application systems of various government agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, DTI, Cooperative Development Agency, Bureau of Internal Revenue, Social Security System, Pag-IBIG, Philhealth, and the local government units,” he said.
With the PBR, the online filing of applications for business permits and licenses will require only the registrants to fill up a single data entry facility, which in turn links to the systems of national government agencies and LGU’s.
In the old system, business registration usually takes 50 days going through 11 processes. Under the paperless system, Morales said, the applicants can save 26 days in the business registration processes. “We have targets but for now we can only say that with PBR, saving 26 days from the usual 50 days of registration and processes can be guaranteed. But the rock bottom of PBR is significant speed,” he said.
