[ Manila Bulletin Online ] December 30, 2008
By MIKE U. CRISMUNDO
BUTUAN CITY — The National Economic Research and Business Assistance Center (NERBAC) in Northeastern Mindanao (Caraga region) is now in full operation and is well on its way to operating as a full-fledged one-stop action, resource and assistance center by year 2009.
"We are on the move and we can already serve more businesses in the coming years," the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in Caraga said.
It was learned that NERBAC-Caraga has already augmented its facilities needed to fully service business applicants and investors through its business registration and licensing (BRL) unit, knowledge management (KM) unit and investment marketing and facilitation (IMF) unit.
These functional divisions are anchored by full-time staff from the DTI with some detailed personnel from the Social Security System, Pag-Ibig Fund and PhilHealth who will be reporting once a week.
NERBAC also maintains a strong network of technical working group members or focal persons from its more than 30 member agencies, including local government units (LGUs), and an active set of NERBAC board of advisors.
The NERBAC business registration and licensing group has worked to discuss the different processes and requirements of all agencies involved in registration and licensing to establish the existing processing time which an applicant must go through or comply with to start a business.
NERBAC has also conducted a series of consultations to try to minimize time and other requirements to encourage more people to start their own enterprise.
In a press statement sent to Manila Bulletin, the DTI Caraga said existing baseline processing time – excluding time spent by applicant to complete requirements, the inspections and other special licensing – stands at about seven days.
