The World Bank believes it has the answers. The Philippine Daily Inquirer’s banner story today shows a list of measures the International Finance Corp., the private sector development arm of the World Bank, is urging the government to adopt.
Do you agree with the IFC? It says the Philippines is weak especially in the areas of starting a business, property registration and ability to access credit.
In a nutshell, IFC suggests that the government should:
The proposal on the credit information bureau is particularly interesting because at the moment, lenders are keeping their own counsel on who is creditworthy or not. Why would they share that kind of information with their peers, no matter what they say publicly about “working together for the good of the industry.” The absence of a good database on potential borrowers makes it easier or bad borrowers to get a loan and raises banks’ past due loans.
Who is the end loser here? The banks to a certain extent because their image gets hurt, but more so good borrowers who get higher interest rates and a longer time to process loans because of more documentary requirements and credit history checking. At least, that’s how bankers explain the situation.
Unfortunately, getting that reform done will depend on Congress, where the road to an important bill can twist and turn like a supertyphoon dancing with another supertyphoon.
December 3rd, 2007 at 12:15 pm
Hi Salve,
I have a friend in Singapore who registered his entire company online while sitting at a coffee shop!
While we can do some of the preliminary work of incorporating a company online, it is still a very tedious process and it seems like very few people are opting to do it. We also need better information on how to incorporate so that we can lower the barriers to starting new companies.
Apart from incorporation, the whole process of doing BIR, DTI, barangay registrations etc. is still very confusing. Even for someone like me who has incorporated 4 times already.