Setting up a business in Brunei takes approximately 116 days when compared to setting up businesses overseas such as Singapore and we are ranked 96th internationally extracted from a report on Doing Business 2010, from June 2008 until May 2009. As a country aiming to diversify the economy away from oil and gas, Brunei should look for ways to improve the conditions for attracting Small Medium Enterprises to flourish in the country. Brunei should also concentrate on attracting foreign investors into the country as this will help increase the skills and technical know-how of locals through joint ventures with local companies thus improving the country’s productivity on both skilled labour and local products. Therefore Brunei should improve the current system for setting up businesses from applying manually to various Government Agencies which consumes a lot of time and cost by providing a one stop online system where people are able to apply online therefore receiving prompt replies from the various government agencies.
Currently, Brunei do not have a one stop online system which caters to the needs of business minded people where applicants are able to register their businesses online, look up government laws and regulations about certain types of businesses and so on. The system that we use in Brunei is done either manually or through online applications where there are altogether 18 procedures from registering your company’s name with the Registrar of Companies to application for miscellaneous licenses from the Ministry of Home Affairs. Although some of the applications are done online, however the systems of government agencies are not linked to each other yet.
The only online system which caters to the needs of businessmen in the country is the Business Facilitation Centre provided by the Ministry of Industry and Primary Resources under eMIPR. Through eMIPR the public is able to apply for various services ranging from investment incentives to application for industrial complexes, land for agricultural purposes, license to fish, miscellaneous licenses for importing and selling first hand or second hand cars or exporting second hand cars overseas. However again, what the current system is lacking is that the website is not linked with other government related agencies who are also responsible for helping people in opening up their businesses such as the Registrar of Companies, Ministry of Home Affairs, Labour Department to name a few.
This system is a one stop business application online system whereby the website is uploaded with information regarding about Government laws and regulations, assistance, licenses and permits that you need for your business. This way we can save time and start-up cost therefore we will be able to compete with other countries in terms of capturing good international companies to open up in the country. In addition, the level of efficiency will also improve as human errors through the manual system will decrease.
For example Singapore has the EnterpriseOne where currently through this system, the country is currently ranked the 1st in the Ease of Doing Business where it only takes 3 days for people to set up their businesses there and they only have to go through 3 different steps of procedures.
Even though the cost for setting up such platform is expensive, it will definitely help Brunei to attract more businesses thus help diversify the economy away from oil and gas sectors.
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