Starting a new business was made somewhat easier in FY 20 when the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies and Firms (RJSC) took some steps to simplify the registration procedure as well as render it less costly and time-consuming. The measures included some amount of automation in getting trade licence, having clearance for company name, obtaining incorporation certificate, TIN and VAT registration. Also, the procedure for getting utility services like power, registering property, accessing credit and so on were simplified to some extent. Such measures may have improved to a degree the overall work culture at the company registration level. Which is why unsurprisingly Bangladesh's ranking on the World Bank (WB)'s Ease of Doing Business (EODB) score card climbed eight notches higher (from 176 to 168) in 2020. So far so good. But even after all these changes, the environment of doing business in the country has remained far from being encumbrance-free. Let us consider, for example, the issue of the intermediary who in the 89 per cent of the cases helps new entrepreneurs in processing their company papers for registration in exchange for money. As expected, the intervention of the intermediary, who usually performs the related tasks manually, increases the cost of doing business by, according to a study finding, close to 50 per cent. Even so, the entire phase of paper processing takes on average eight days, though, ideally, it should be only three days.
But even this three days' standard to process the work related to company-registration in our case is too slow when compared to Malaysia or Singapore where it takes less than an hour to complete the same tasks. These countries made it possible through automation along with simplification of the procedures involved. These pieces of information are the findings of a study done in March and April this year by a pro-business research group. All these issues came up for discussion at a recent webinar held in the city, where business leaders, experts and government representatives highlighted the areas still remaining as roadblocks to creating a friendlier business environment in Bangladesh. Understandably, the difficulties stymieing the pace of work before launching a company have to be overcome in a phased manner. On this score, one-stop service should be introduced at all the stages of the job including registration. Especially, arrangements should be in order to provide expeditious service to foreign investors. Alongside these steps, mobile financial service (MFS) may be considered a mode of payment for various fees and service charges involved.
It is to be noted that much of the work at the pre-registration stage can be done online. But difficulties usually arise at the post-registration phase such as when preparing documents, consulting with third parties and similar other tasks. These are the offline jobs that would be required to be done manually and it is at this point that the role of the intermediary comes in handy. This issue can be addressed through giving the intermediaries official recognition by way of legalising their service. This is the practice in many countries including the advanced ones. Overall, these are but piecemeal approaches to the problem of resolving the pre-registration as well as post-registration phases of starting a new venture. The best solution, however, lies in full automation of the company registration process. So, all efforts should be made to reach that goal sooner rather than later.