Karachi, January 13, 2024 – The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has recently showcased a series of impactful measures implemented during the fiscal year 2022-23, aimed at promoting ease of doing business in Pakistan.
(more…)Tag: ease of doing business
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Pakistan improves ranking by 31 positions in ease of trading across border index: FBR
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has improved its ranking by 31 positions (from 142nd to 111th) on the rank of trading across border index, according to a statement issued by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on Tuesday.
The FBR made trading across borders easier by focusing three crucial areas: enhancing the integration of various agencies in the Web-Based One Customs (WEBOC) electronic system; reducing the number of documents required for import / export clearances; enhancing capacities of Pakistan Customs officials for playing pro-active role in smoothly regulating border trade.
Climbing up the ladder in Trading Across Border Index has enabled Pakistan in jumping up 28 places – from 136th to 108th – in World Bank’s (WB)’s ‘Ease of Doing Business 2020’ and securing a place among the top 10 countries have done the most in the corresponding / past year to improve the ease of doing business in their countries.
This milestone has led Pakistan to be the sixth global reformer and first in South Asia that has brought ease in doing business for the national / international trade.
It is important to note that border facilitation is amongst the top priority areas as per the comprehensive policy laid down by the Government. Concerted efforts by Pakistan Customs, under FBR, led to impressive performance in terms of compliance to the provisions of World Trade Organization (WTO)’s Trade Facilitation Agreement; hence, complementing Pakistan’s rise in Trading Across Border Index.
Pakistan Customs has pursued implementation of effective customs controls so that compliant trade is thoroughly facilitated, while lesser / non-compliant trade is diverted to detailed scrutiny. This strategy worked well, as conceived by Pakistan Customs, and has gone a long way in reducing the dwell time (at the borders / ports) for imports / exports in Pakistan by increasing the percentage of clearances through Green Channel.
For instance, the time required for documentary compliance to effect exports has been reduced from 55 hours to 24 hours, and the time required for overall border compliance to effect exports has also been reduced from 75 hours to 24 hours.
Similarly, the time required for documentary compliance to effect imports has been reduced from 143 hours to 24 hours, and the time required for overall border compliance to effect imports has also been reduced from 120 hours to 24 hours.
In order to further improve Pakistan’s position in Trading Across Border criterion, Federal Board of Revenue is pursuing simultaneous completion of Regional Improvement of Border Services (RIBS) and Pakistan Single Window.
Regional Improvement of Border Services (RIBS) is being implemented at Torkham, Chaman, and Wahga and is the Flagship program that aims at improving border-crossing facilities which are key transit points to Afghanistan and India.
Pakistan Single Window, on the other hand, would integrate online at least 46 departments / agencies in Pakistan and would make trading across border a hassle free and seamless operation.
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FPCCI hopes improved ease of doing business to encourage foreign investment
KARACHI: Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) hoped that improvement in ease of doing business in Pakistan will encourage foreign investment into the country.
Engr. Daroo Khan Achakzai, President FPCCI in a statement issued on Friday congratulated Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan and his team for improvement of Pakistan’s ranking from 136 to 108 in Ease of Doing Business 2020 report issued by World Bank.
The report indicated that the World Bank and others institutions has started recognition of Pakistan’s Business reforms.
He added that the improving of Pakistan in Ease of Doing Business will definitely pave the way in encouraging the international investors to make substantial investment in Pakistan as most of the international investors make decisions of investment on the basis of this report.
The President FPCCI said that the Present Government has achieved another milestone of their manifesto i.e. to bring Pakistan into top investment destinations.
He hoped that the continuous reforms of the Government will bring Pakistan into top 80 countries next year. He added that Pakistan’s ranking had improved in six indicators i.e. starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, paying taxes and trading across borders which made Pakistan in top ten business reformer countries.
This will also facilitate the other countries to investment in CPEC related projects which will connect South Asia with Central Asia and Europe.
He suggested the government to make similar incentives/reforms in Baluchistan and KPK as the World Bank report has only covered two main provinces Punjab and Sindh.
Inclusion of these provinces will help in their economic development.
He further added that improvement in ranking will improve the business environment and overall economy become visible because of the reforms introduced by the government which will focus on the mandate of ensuring well being of masses and providing quality education and health to all segment of society.
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Pakistan among top 10 improvers in World Bank’s ease of doing business
ISLAMABAD: The World Bank on Thursday said that the enactment of six regulatory reforms has landed Pakistan among the world’s top 10 business climate improvers.
A study of the World Bank Group’s Doing Business 2020 said that due to a concerted improvement in business regulation, Pakistan climbed 28 places and rose to a rank of 108 in the global ease of Doing Business rankings this year from 136 the previous year.
“This rise is significant and made possible by collective and coordinated actions of Federal Government and Provincial Governments of Sindh and Punjab over the past year,” said Illango Patchamuthu, World Bank Country Director for Pakistan. “The accelerated reform agenda has many noteworthy features to improve quality of regulations, reduce time and streamline processes. This momentum needs to be sustained in the coming years for Pakistan to continue to make progress.”
The reforms that helped the country improve its ranking are significant. The country has made starting a business easier by expanding the functionalities of the online one-stop-shop. This reduced the number of procedures required to set up a business from 10 to five and improved the economy’s score for starting a business. Additionally, in Lahore, the Labor Department registration fee was abolished.
Authorities made the approval process for obtaining a construction permit easier and faster in both Karachi and Lahore. In Karachi, the process was also made safer by ensuring that building quality inspections take place regularly. Pakistan also eased the process for paying taxes by introducing online payment modules for value added taxes and corporate income taxes. The government also lowered the corporate income tax rate for the 2018 fiscal year. This reform reduced the number of payments from 47 to 34 and the total number of hours required to comply with tax requirements per year from 294 to 283.
Pakistan also made it easier to get electricity and register property. Karachi and Lahore enforced service delivery time frames and launched an online portal for new applications. In addition, the country increased the transparency of electricity tariff changes. Karachi made property registration faster by making it easier to execute and register a deed at the Office of the Sub-Registrar. Lahore increased the transparency of the land administration system by publishing its fee schedule online. Lastly, in the area of trading across borders, Pakistan enhanced the integration of various agencies in the Web-Based One Customs (WEBOC) electronic system and ensured coordination of joint physical inspections at the port.
Pakistan continues to perform best on the protecting minority investors indicator, earning the maximum possible points on the extent of ownership and control index, which measures governance safeguards protecting shareholders from undue board control. Globally, Pakistan is in the top 30 economies on this measure.
Going forward, Pakistan has other opportunities for improvement in the areas measured by Doing Business. For example, on enforcing contracts, the country ranks 156th. It takes 1,071 days to resolve a commercial dispute in Pakistan, almost twice the average among OCED high-income economies.
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Pakistan Customs launches swift consignment clearance system to improve ease of doing business
KARACHI: Pakistan Customs on Monday launched the swift consignment clearance software for improving ease of doing business and trading across the border indices of the country.
The system namely ‘WeBOC Global’ was inaugurated by Member Customs Dr Jawwad Uwais Agha at Custom house, Karachi.
He introduced the key features of the newly developed ICT system which was attended by a large number of the senior officers of Pakistan Custom and members of the WeBOC-Glo Project team.
The new version of Customs clearance system was deployed at early in the morning May 13, 2019 which has immediately replaced the previous version of WeBOC clearance system.
This will be a modern and technologically advanced version of WeBOC which is an end to end automated online goods clearance system home grown by Pakistan Customs in 2011.
With the introduction of new WeBOC system, the Custom clearance system of Pakistan will enter into the club of modern, upgraded and technologically advanced Custom clearance system of the world, the Member said.
The WeBOC-Glo in addition to new modules and functionalities will be plugging the deficiencies of earlier clearance system pointed out during the course of time in internal reviews and ICT Gap Analysis by the World Bank.
Components of Release 1.0 of the WeBOC-Glo were introduced by Iftikhar Ahmad, Collector/Convener of the project which included 13 modules and functionalities.
The major modules included:
(1) the Development of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) with Terminal Operators for Export LCL Cargo, which will reduce dwell time at ports
(2) the Quota Management of Bulk Export Cargo, which will facilitate auto debiting of assigned quota,
(3) the establishment of IT interface with Ministry of Foreign Affairs for automation of Exemption Certificates,
(4) the availability of WeBOC Glo on Chrome and Edge to provide convenience to users,
(5) the enhanced Security Features, to safeguard the User IDs and relevant data of importers /exporters,
(6) the unified Screens for MIS Officers, to ensure speedy processing,
(7) the search engine for TARIFF and relevant SROs to empower users in Tariff and import/export policy information for correct filling and assessment of GDs,
(8) the update on Containers Status, to allow traders the facility to keep track of containers,
(9) Improved User Interface, aimed at making the system more user friendly and less time consuming and
(10) the Glo Insight which strengthens the statistical Scrutiny and monitoring of Customs transactions through business intelligence and data analysis tools for informed decisions making.
In addition to above, the WeBOC-Glo will be instrumental in closure of old Customs clearance system by automating areas that had remained outside its scope so far.
(1) the Export Processing Zone, whose import and export clearance along with the role and functions of EPZA have been automated for the first time,
(2) the GD Filing Without NTN, which will facilitate individual importers, Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) promoting e-Commerce in Pakistan,
(3) the Exceptional GD Filing, which caters to all scenarios where auto clearance were held up due to peculiar taxation regimes on items or specific orders of superior courts.
The team has been further instructed by Dr Agha to plan launch of Release-2of WeBOC Glo by the first week of July, 2019.
The Release-2 will include further important modules like DTRE, Bulk Exports and Exports through Courier.
With the development of these modules all the processes related to export will be fully automated which will definitely facilitate export sectors.
Release-2 will also include E-Auction Module, for auction of confiscated goods in line with modern concepts of Auction.
Oil imports contribute the major share in Imports Bill. All the processes like Import, storage, transportation and transit of Oil will also be covered in Release-2 Similarly PCA Entity based Audit module will also be part of it, which will dramatically enhance money trial analysis and be handy in detection of money laundering.
Initial work has already been done on these modules and they are under different stages of development.
Some less important modules will be launched in Release-3 by Mid September which will complete automation of all the Customs processes under WeBOC-Glo.
Earlier, Dr Jawwad Agha conceived the idea of up gradation and functionally advanced new Customs system and had put in place a two tier setup, the WeBOC-Glo Domain team and Oversight and Approval Team, in December, 2018.
In view of highly technical nature of the task officers having vast professional experience and well grounded in automated work environment were grouped together.
The team lead by Collector Dr. Iftikhar Ahmad (project team leader) included: Additional Collectors Shafqat Niazi, Sanaullah Abro, Ms Mona Mehfooz, Ali Zaman Gardezi and Deputy Collector Ms Nausheen Riaz Khan.
The project team leader said that packed and strict timeline was given to undertake the Businesses Process Re-Engineering (BPR), development of new modules and functionalities of the WeBOC Glo.
He added that the project team had to put in long hours on weekend, over and above their regular work assignments, to meet the deadlines, while Agha continuously monitored the progress and provided his full support to project team. Within short time of four months, WeBOC-Glo project team under guidance of oversight and Approval team, consisting of senior officers of Customs succeeded in accomplishing the task of development of 13 different modules and functionalities of new version.
User Acceptance Tests (UATs) with relevant stakeholders have been completed too. The PRAL’s Business Analysis and software Development Units provided able resource support and remained instrumental in the achievement.
With the launch of the WeBOC-Glo, the Customs department moves further ahead as the leading public sector organization mag use of modern technology for hassle free public service delivery.
The system ensures transparency, efficiency, professionalism and further reduces the interaction with taxpayer besides providing tech ability for future integration with artificial intelligence for RMS analysis.