New Online Biz Registration to Be Available This Month

New Online Biz Registration to Be Available This Month

The first phase of the National Information Technology (IT) Business Registration Platform will be launched in the second week of this month, according to a senior official of the Ministry of Economy and Finance.

The IT Business Registration Platform will facilitate and encourage business registration for all companies, especially to support the companies that aim to register and to access credit from the government’s special fund.

Kong Marry, adviser to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance Aun Pornmoniroth and Chairman of Techo Startup Center (TSC), told Khmer Times that the IT platform will launch later next week.

Marry added that it will combine the Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training, and the General Department of Taxation (GDT).

“With this online business registration platform, the businesses or SMEs [small and medium enterprises] can also access the government special fund with a low interest rate. We launched this platform to help the SMEs which do not have the formal documents, so they can register and receive the licence within eight days, then they can request a loan from the banks,” he added.

“This task has been working for more than a year and now we have got the approval from the government to launch this platform within the second week of June.”

He said that before business registrations were conducted separately and in different locations. For example, business owners had to register at the Ministry of Commerce, General Department of Taxation, Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training and other relevant ministries.

“With the online business registration platform, they [businesspeople] can register via an online platform and they can link to other relevant government’s entities as well as the taxation department plus it is connected with an electronic payment system. Then all the data will link to each relevant department and ministry automatically,” Marry added.

“Within eight working days of the online business registration if there is no issue with the application, they [applicants] will be notified about the success of their business registration,” he said. “It is a full online registration without meeting people because meeting people can create issues, so we want it all done automatically, including e-payments.”

“This is what the SMEs are waiting for We have worked on business registration for months. now it takes only eight days,” he added. “Our main purpose is to encourage the SMEs to register because now it is simplified, short-term and at a lower price. The government has also reduced 50 percent of the business registration cost and 50 percent of the patent from the General Department of Taxation.”

Chhea Layhy, director of the SMEs Department of Ministry Industry, Science, Technology and Innovation, told Khmer Times that his ministry also participated in the process. Layhy added that it is a good move because a lot of small and medium enterprises have not yet registered their business. Therefore, the government is paying close attention to this matter.

The purpose, Mr Layhy said, is to respond to the need of SMEs and simplify the registration to make it convenient for business and SME registration – it is a one stop platform to serve all the SMEs and it is to respond to the Asean framework which demands all countries in Asean to minimise the time it takes to register a business.

“At present, the government mechanism is to focus priority on the SMEs. Therefore, the government initiated the National IT Platform for Business Registration. The SMEs can register just once on the platform and then they receive a complete set of the business licence, patent and tax payment, as well as reducing the fee,” Layhy added.

He said the platform for business registration manages all the data and is easily set up with the incentive policy to help the SMEs.

“The online registration demands some ability from the register. Otherwise he or she will face issues. When we finish our platform and announce the official launch, we will have a guidance session for SMEs or business owners. We have a technical team to improve their ability and train them how to register a business online.”

According to the Ministry of Industry, Science, Technology and Innovation in 2019, of the 510,000 firms that were registered in Cambodia, more than 90 per cent of them were SMEs. More than 50,000 SMEs in manufacturing registered a business with the Ministry of Industry, Science, Technology and Innovation. These businesses employed more than 1.2 million people and contributed to more than 32 percent of the gross domestic product of the country.