Thursday, April 25, 2024
Business Initiative Leading Development (BUILD) on Thursday called for full-scale automation of the registration process of obtaining certificates and registration in a bid to ensure ease of doing business in Bangladesh.
BUILD Chairperson Nihad Kabir urged Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi during a courtesy call at his office in Dhaka.
During the meeting, Tipu Munshi said his ministry would continue its advocacy with other ministries to simplify the process of obtaining certificates and registration, including five-year trade licences to ensure ease of business.
As part of it, the ministry issued a notice in November 2022 to provide Import Registration Certificate (IRC) and Export Registration Certificate (ERC) for five years rather than one.
Referring to the BUILD request for complete automation of RJSC services, he said, “We will go for full-scale automation, and we will be going through some internal proceedings while we aspire to be a paperless office in delivering faster business registration services online.”
BUILD Chair Nihad Kabir expressed concern over the high paid-up capital requirement for one-person companies (OPC). She urged the commerce minister to consider eliminating the BDT 25 lakh minimum paid-up capital requirement for one-person companies while leaving the maximum limit open. She also advocated for eliminating the necessity for a commercial address when applying for a trade licence to facilitate company operations throughout the country.
MCCI President Md Saiful Islam stressed the need to simplify obtaining a trade licence and advised that the government could digitalise the trade licence process collecting all relevant fees five years apart and transferring the revenue under the head to pertinent agencies that earn income for providing the licences.
BUILD CEO Ferdaus Ara said that BUILD and the Ministry of Commerce prepared export roadmaps on plastic, leather and light engineering sectors targeting the export of USD 22 billion, USD 12.9 billion, and USD 12.56 billion by 2030, respectively.
Underscoring the need to implement the roadmap’s action plans, she said that the Ministry of Commerce could take the lead and contribute to the country’s export basket.
DCCI President Sameer Sattar also attended the meeting.
