By Kris M. Crismundo
MANILA, (PNA) – The National Competitiveness Council (NCC), a public-private partnership that addresses the improvement of country’s economic competitiveness, is eager to continue an average 30-notch improvement every year in Ease of Doing Business (EODB) Report to spot Philippines in the upper one-third of the ranking in 2016.
NCC Co-Chairman Guillermo Luz said during the EODB Report 2014 launching Tuesday that the public and private sectors are keen to achieve the goal for the Philippines to put the country in the upper third in the next three years from its starting point of bottom third.
Philippines has started below 140th rank in EODB since it was coined eleven years ago and was up to 138th rank in EODB 2013.
The new result of EODB Report 2014 has ranked Philippines 108th among 189 economies which surged 30 notches, the highest climb of the country in the EODB Report of World Bank and International Finance Corporation (IFC).
Hence to maintain the performance of the country, the public and private sectors shall continue improving the process of doing business in the Philippines.
Measurement of doing business includes Starting a Business, Dealing with Construction Permits, Getting Electricity, Registering Property, Getting Credit, Protecting Investors, Paying Taxes, Trading Across Borders, Enforcing Contracts, and Resolving Insolvency.
Over a year, country’s Starting a Business has improved the transaction from 16 procedures processed in 36 days to 15 procedures processed in 35 days. The target of NCC for 2016 is to reduce steps of starting a business to 3 steps processed in 6 days.
For Dealing with Construction Permits, it improved from 29 procedures processed in 84 days to 25 procedures processed in 77 days. Year 2016 gameplan aims for 8 steps processed in 84 days.
In Getting Electricity, Philippines enhanced its transaction from 5 procedures processed in 50 days to 5 procedures processed in 42 days. Target for 2016 is 4 steps in 35 days.
Registering Property, however, remained at 8 procedures processed in 39 days over a year. After three years, NCC targets registering property to take 5 steps within 21 days.
On the other hand, the EODB indicator of getting credit is measured through Depth of Credit Information Index which scores 0 to 6 and Strengths of Legal Rights Index that scores from 0 to 10 .
For this year’s report, the country improved from score of 3 in Depth of Credit Information Index to score of 5 while Strengths of Legal Rights Index remained the score of 4.
The country wishes to achieve perfect scores (which are 6 and 10) in two indices of getting credit in 2016.
Likewise, protecting investors with three indices scored from 0 to 10 are extent of disclosure, extent of director liability and ease of shareholder suits.
Over a year, scores remained at 2 for extent of disclosure; 3 for extent of director liability; and 8 for ease of shareholder suits.
NCC aims to target scores of 10, 7 and 8 in 2016, respectively.
Paying Taxes also improved from 16 payments in 218 hours per year to 36 hours in 193 hours per year.
NCC’s 2016 gameplan target is 27 payments in 96 hours.
Trading Across Borders remained 6 documents to export processed in 15 days while documents to import improved from 9 documents processed in 15 days to 7 documents processed in 14 days.
The council aims to reduced documents and days to export at 4 documents in 5 days and documents to import at 4 documents in 4 days in 2016.
Resolving Insolvency last year was processed at 2.5 years, 8 percent cost of estate, and 73.4 cents on the dollar for recovery rate.
This year it is pegged at 2.7 years, 22 percent cost of estate, and 29.9 cents on the dollar for recovery rate.
Even the NCC accomplished eight out of 10 indicators, the NCC cannot evaluate indicators of Enforcing Contractors and Resolving Insolvency as the electronic court system and implementing rules and regulations of the Financial Rehabilitation and Insolvency Act of 2010 were still in process.