THE localized ease of doing business (EODB) report should cover the business sustainability aspect and the impact of streamlining the government transaction processes, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said.
On Monday, the joint memorandum circular (JMC) on the establishment of the Philippine Ease Of Doing Business and Efficient Government Service Delivery Reporting System was launched and signed by the DTI, Anti-Red Tape Authority (Arta), Department of Finance, Department of Information and Communications Technology and the Department of the Interior and Local Government, among others.
“By having a system in place for regulatory review, assessment and monitoring, the quality and effectiveness of government reforms that affect business operations can be evaluated more accurately,” Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said during the event.
With this, Lopez advised the development of a framework for an indicator system, which shall factor in the Sustainable Business Policy Index.
The indicator, he said, shall highlight the social and environmental sustainability measures by the subjects.
Lopez cited the need to measure the impact of the EoDB reforms as well.
“Beyond measuring steps, processing time and cost, the reporting system may include impact indicators,” he said.
“For starting a business, for instance, indicators on the increase in the number of business registrations because of reforms may be included.”
3rd-party validation
The DTI official also cited the need for third-party validation of the EODB report.
He said the private sector may “be tapped to identify priority areas as well as participate in the surveys that will be developed as part of the reporting system.”
For the pilot test, Arta Deputy Director General Ernesto V. Perez said it will first cover the Metro Manila cities and other highly urbanized cities in the provinces.
The framework will be initially anchored on the World Bank’s (WB) Doing Business methodology, in addition to Arta’s Philippine Good Regulatory Principles.
For the first year of the pilot implementation, Perez said that priority shall be given to the “Starting a Business” indicator, which includes business registration and employee reporting, to provide baseline information moving forward.
Arta Director General Jeremiah Belgica said that it was crucial to localize the EODB report as it will promote “healthy competition” that can lead to more streamlined government practices.
This, as the Philippine EODB Reporting System will also be used to measure the compliance of the government agencies and local government units with the provisions of the EODB laws.
The EODB and Anti-Red Tape Advisory Council approved the creation of a technical working group tasked with crafting a framework and methodology to review the EODB and efficient government service delivery in the country on September 20, 2021.
The move to localize the DB report came after the WB’s announcement that it would discontinue the said survey after finding “data irregularities” due to potential manipulation.
In an earlier statement, WB revealed there were “data irregularities” in the Doing Business 2018 and 2020 reports that raised ethical issues, referring to the conduct of some officials while doing the research. An external investigation concluded that former World Bank chief executive Kristalina Georgieva and former World Bank president Jim Yong Kim applied “undue pressure” to boost the data points of China.
The international financial institution said they are crafting new methodologies to assess the business and investment climate.