WITH the business licence reforms in place the Nausori Town Council issued 810 business licences in January this year compared with 470 for the same period last year. Minister for Industry, Trade and Tourism, Premila Kumar said this was an increase of 72 per cent.
“In Suva, 193 new business licences were issued compared with 74 in January 2019.
“Suva City Council was able to issue renewal of business licences in less than 24 hours, whilst new business licence met the 48-hour benchmark,” she said.
In her ministerial statement in Parliament yesterday, Ms Kumar said all municipal councils, from the smallest to the largest, had been able to successfully roll out the new process.
Ms Kumar said before the business licence reforms, the eight procedures for businesses to comply with in order to get a business licence to start operations were illogical and created barriers to starting a business in Fiji.
She said with the eight business registration procedures, the World Bank Group (WBG) Doing Business Report (DB) noted that it used to take 40 days to start a business in Fiji.
These included the provision of Business Name Registration Certificate; Foreign Investment Registration Certificate (FIRC) for foreign investors; Tax Identification Number (TIN) registration letter; business holder’s names and contact, including 1 copy of their photo ID (passport/driver’s licence/FNPF card or any other valid photo ID); copy of consent letter from landlord (if renting); copy of Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) letter; copy of National Fire Authority (NFA) certificate; and copy of Building completion certificate. Ms Kumar said in an effort to improve ease of doing business and business climate in Fiji, as of January 1, 2020, the ministry rolled out new processes for business licencing and renewal of licences.
“With the business licence reform, a start-up or existing business requires two documents, that is business registration and tax registration to obtain a business licence.
“In addition, business licence applications are assessed based on risk, which was previously measured with the same yard stick.
“Now businesses that are classified as low risk can start a business immediately and meet compliance with other ancillary legislations within six months,” she said.
Ms Kumar said Fiji’s Business Licensing Act 1976 granted the municipalities powers to establish by-laws for efficient running of their respective municipalities but this led to each municipality creating their own licencing regimes and different categories of business licences and requirements.
She said the reform introduced a standardised and simplified process across 13 municipal councils to improve the ease of doing business in Fiji.
“The reforms in the area of business licensing has led to streamlining and eliminating processes and, reduction in time and cost to start a business.
“All municipalities around Fiji are using the same procedure and the same application form for the business licence,” said Ms Kumar.
