World Bank urges PH to be more business-friendly

MANILA — The World Bank urged the Philippines to do more to improve its business environment following the release of the Business Ready report of the global lending body.

The Business Ready report, or B-Ready, covers dozens of countries and assesses various topics in the life cycle of a firm and its participation in the market while opening, expanding, reorganizing, and closing as a business.

The Philippines scored well in the labor with 75.54 percent out of 100 and international trade with 71.47 percent.

In Southeast Asia, the country got the highest mark in labor and second highest in international trade following Singapore.

World Bank said under labor, an economy has implemented measured good practices in terms of labor inspectorates. Under international trade, a country provides electronic systems and interoperability of services.

The Philippines, however, did not fare well in the eight other topics.

It got a lower marks in business entry with 48.49 percent, business insolvency at 45.51 percent, and market competition at 50.13 percent.

World Bank Director for Global Indicators Group Norman Loazya said that while the Philippines is starting to improve its business processes, there are still many things it needs to strengthen, like the number of days to register a business.

“[The] Philippines takes 75 days to register a new domestic company. It’s a long time, while most efficient economies take 3 days,” Loazya said during an event in Quezon City.

Under the three pillars of Regulatory Framework, Public Services, and Operational Efficiency, the Philippines scored 70.68 percent, which means the country has good laws or policies. But it scored only 50.80 percent in public services and 57.95 percent in operational efficiency -- which means there is a problem in the implementation of the laws.

Loazya added: “If it wants to attract businesses from the informal to the formal sector, if it wants to create more of this dynamic private sector, then it needs to improve radically on business entry, market competition, and business consultancy.”

Anti-Red Tape Authority Director General Secretary Ernesto Perez said he welcomes the B-Ready report as it will help them make government processes better.

He added that the country already has laws and policies to improve businesses like the requirement for business registration process to last only 3 days. However, he admitted that sometimes frontline workers may be at fault since they would ask more documents than required.

“The law is there. It is in the implementation we fail. I think it’s only in the level of the personnel or frontline doing the assessment. They keep on requiring additional documents that are not supposed to happen,” Perez said.

He is now creating a B-Ready guidebook to help government employees and other stakeholders improve business processes and also share global practices. This guidebook is expected to be released this year in time also for the second assessment of World Bank on the Philippines.