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AFTER the country’s dismal performance in the World Bank’s Doing Business 2019 report, the government is employing a two-pronged strategy to improve Manila’s rating in the next cycle, even as two agencies have lodged a strongly worded protest disputing the data gathering in one survey area.
The Departments of Trade and Industry (DTI) and of Finance (DOF) on Wednesday night declared the government will be aggressive in implementing ease of doing business (EODB) measures for the 2020 survey. This was after the Philippines fell 11 notches to 124th among 190 economies in the World Bank’s survey on EODB.
It was the second straight year the country declined in the annual report that assesses the life of businesses among economies. Manila placed 113th in the 2018 edition, which was also a slump from its 99th-place finish in the 2017 cycle.
“Thus, for the 2020 Doing Business report, our strategy is two-pronged: one, we shall continue to pursue regulatory reforms, [such as] streamlining of processes, repeal of outdated/redundant and obsolete rules and regulations that create undue regulatory burden; and two, implement an effective communication campaign,” the DTI and DOF said in a joint statement.
“The DTI and DOF, in coordination with other agencies concerned, will launch an aggressive communication campaign in the next three months so that the planned regulatory reforms that the agencies have started to implement will be credited in the 2020 Doing Business report cycle,” they added.
The government is determined to also popularize Revenue Memorandum Order 19-2018 and Revenue Memorandum Circular 30-2018 issued by the Bureau of Internal Revenue.
Under these regulations, registration of the book of accounts can be done 30 days and the authority to print receipts should be given together with the certificate of registration. It also reiterated the removal of the requirement to submit books of accounts as condition for issuance of a certification of registration.
Digitizing titles
The government will also “encourage citizens to have the titles digitized.” It argued there is a need to scale up the implementation of the Land Titling Computerization Project, which should convert almost 25 million certificates of title into digital form.
To be included in the massive information campaign are the provisions of the EODB and Efficient Government Service Delivery Act, as well as the Personal Property Security Act. The government believes these two laws will directly impact on the country’s competitiveness ranking.
“Each year, the government strives to improve the ease of doing business by implementing significant reforms that will bring us closer to the frontier. Last year we have been relatively aggressive in instituting regulatory reforms,” the DTI and DOF said.
The government’s declaration of an aggressive policy on instituting EODB reforms was carried in the same statement it contested the results of the survey.
Manila is demanding that the World Bank review the rating it gave to the Philippines, as it accused the world’s largest lender of utilizing “grossly inaccurate and understated findings in the getting credit indicator of the report.” The Philippines scored a dismal 5 out of 100 on getting credit, placing it 184th for that indicator.
The DTI-DOF letter disputed this score. “Considering that higher borrower coverage is associated with larger share of adults with credit cards and borrowing from financial institutions, we find the report grossly inaccurate and the coverage severely understated,” the joint statement read.
The Philippines, said the DTI-DOF, should have received a higher score if the WB included data from all the credit bureaus—the BAP Credit Bureau Inc., TransUnion Information Solutions Inc. and the Microfinance Information Data Sharing Inc. The government accused the WB of obtaining figures only from the BAP Credit Bureau Inc., which reportedly has the smallest database of 1.7 million borrower-entrepreneurs.
“The Philippines could easily have hurdled the 5-percent coverage if the World Bank selected the largest credit bureau, as its methodology prescribed. The major credit bureaus with high coverage were included in previous year’s survey,” the joint statement read.
Manila argued if the scores are adjusted, particularly on getting credit, the country should have scored at least 60—and not 57.68—putting it in the range of 101st to 108th.
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