The Davao City local government targets to join the roster of LGUs that have completed and are implementing a Business Permits and Licensing System (BPLS). 

In yesterday’s National Competitive Council Roadshow held at Grand Men Seng Hotel, City Planning Officer Roberto P. Alabado III disclosed that the BPLS which is now a priority program of the present local administration is instrumental in upgrading the services of the LGU. 

“This also gives us a benchmark as to how we are fairing with other cities.”, he said.

It is also here in Davao City that new policies were created to satisfy the needs of most new SMEs. The city allows for the issuance of a temporary business permit which the business enterprise can use for one month while the permit is being processed. 

NCC private sector co-chairman Guillermo Luz lauded Davao City for joining the existing 221 LGUs who have been implementing BPLS. There are currently 119 LGUs which are in the process of fixing processes to finally implement a complete BPLS. 

This program is aimed to streamline business permits and licensing system in the country to the target 480 LGUs by 2014. 

BPLS follows a standard that limits the processing time of LGUs to issue business permits and licenses to a maximum of 10 days from the date of submission of the application form. 

This also required the LGU to have a unified form each for new applications and renewals as well as to have a limited number of steps in processing applications and renewals. 

Luz bared that Philippines dropped four notches from its previous ranking of 144th in 2010 to 148th this year through the Doing Business Survey conducted by the IFC. Singapore leads the survey since 2009 and tailed by other ASEAN countries like Thailand , Malaysia and Vietnam. 

The survey shows that Philippines needs to prioritize efforts in starting a business, dealing with construction permits, and closing a business. The NCC called the attention of concerned government agencies like the Department of Trade and Industry, Bureau of Internal Revenue, local government units, and the Department of Interior and Local Government to work on these priority areas. 

Aside from BPLS, the NCC also pushes for other priority projects such as the Performance Governance System Balanced Scorecard, the Philippine Business Registry (PBR), the National Single Window (NSW), and the Transparency in Budget Delivery. 

NCC is mandated to promote and develop competitiveness strategies and push for the implementation of an action agenda for competitiveness and link it to the Philippine Development Plan.