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THE Government's efforts to slash rules and red tape for businesses have been praised by the World Bank Group yet again.
Its latest report, which highlights successful government initiatives for businesses, has singled out Singapore's Bizfile as a prime example.
Bizfile is an Internet-based business registration, filing, and information retrieval system set up by the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (Acra).
Such initiatives have helped Singapore emerge as the most business- friendly of 178 economies in the World Bank's annual study, trumping Denmark, Hong Kong, New Zealand and the United States.
Before Bizfile was launched in January 2003, aspiring entrepreneurs had to fill out multiple forms and join long queues to register their businesses.
Acra staff would then have to manually enter the information into a central database, which inevitably led to human errors and time spent correcting them.
Bizfile cut the registration process from 24 hours to just 15 minutes. At the same time, the system cut the time it took to incorporate a company in Singapore from five days to just 15 minutes.
The increased efficiency not only enhanced the accuracy and integrity of Acra's database, but also meant additional benefits for entrepreneurs - lower registration fees and better service delivery.
Aside from Bizfile, the Bank's report Celebrating Reform 2008 features case studies from Azerbaijan, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Ghana, Honduras, Peru, Vietnam and Turkey.
ACRA said the report will be out on 23 July.
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