ILOILO City – This city – along with three other Iloilo local government units (LGU) – has qualified as a national finalist for the 2018 Most Business-Friendly LGU awards of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce & Industry (PCCI).
Iloilo City is vying for the Most Business-Friendly Highly-Urbanized City (City – Level 1) plum. Also shortlisted are the Province of Iloilo for the Provincial category, and the towns of Lambunao and Tubungan for the Municipality Level 1 and Municipality Level 2 categories, respectively.
The four LGUs are set to proceed to the final judging phase on Oct. 9 at the PCCI headquarters in Taguig City, where they will deliver a five-minute presentation for a panel of judges.
The city government has taken on efforts to better the ease of doing business in Iloilo, as an unprecedented boom in commerce and industry brings a windfall of investments to this developing locale.
This highly urbanized city is now working on the physical setup of its business one-stop-shop (BOSS) to become compliant with Republic Act 11032, or the Ease of Doing Business and Efficient Government Service Delivery Act of 2018.
In an interview, Business Permits and Licensing Office (BPLO) head Norman Tabud said the law mandates local government units to establish a BOSS for applicants of building permit, certificate of occupancy and business permit.
For 2018, the BPLO aims to register 2,000 new businesses. In the first quarter of 2018 alone, 635 new businesses have applied for business permits at the BPLO – on top of the 14,444 diverse enterprises that have already renewed their permits in January – Tabud says.
During the opening of the new branch of a popular fast food chain here in Sept. 13, Tabud told Panay News that the city had already reached its 2,000-new-businesses goal, with three months in the year more to spare.
In the span of a few years, Iloilo City has streamlined its 27-step business permit application and renewal process, reducing it to only three simple steps. The processing time has been similarly reduced: a business permit may now be obtained in just 30 to 45 minutes upon submission of complete requirements. In the past, it took around 10 months for the document to be released.
“Before we started streamlining in 2012, nakalambot ina sing 27 steps with 27 different signatories, unlike now when it’s made simple and accessible,” explained Tabud. “We believe because of this innovation, madamu gid sang mga businessmen ang na-encourage nga mag-register sang ila businesses and damo sang investors from other parts of the country ang na-engganyo to put up their business here.”
Iloilo City also received a Blue Certification Level II from the Office of the Ombudsman, which means it has met 75 out of the 87 standards set in relation to the latter’s anti-corruption campaign and the Anti-Red Tape Act.
A National Economic and Development Authority forecast showed that the average growth rate in Iloilo and the Visayas region will be higher than the government’s targeted national growth for 2017-2022. The Visayas is seen to boast a 7.7- to 8.3-percent gross domestic product growth rate, outpacing the national average of 6 to 7 percent./PN
