Investment board committed to improving business environment |24 October 2011

Inspired by the commitment to climb up the ladder in the Ease of Doing Business Ranking of the World Bank, a strategic way forward has been chartered under the direction of the High Level committee chaired by Vice-President Danny Faure, with the Minister responsible for Investment, Natural Resources and Industry, Peter Sinon, as the vice-chairman.

Considering that the improvement process will be one where dialogues and participation of both the private and public sectors will be encouraged, SIB foresees that a complete and effective transformation of the business environment will take a few months of dedicated hard work and cohesive approach.

SIB nonetheless is convinced that support structures should be put in place in order to ensure that the process not only makes it easy for the business community but most importantly, will allow government institutions to continuously monitor the business processes and maintain accurate records on business development. 

The first step in this process is to link up all business regulatory authorities connected onto one information platform that will result in shorter processes and better management of business information.

This project reinforces the commitment made earlier this year in the Seychelles Investment forum by Minister Sinon when he pointed out that the business environment needs to encourage and facilitate local business entrepreneurs to venture into the opportunities of the new Seychelles.

“I am confident that it is only through dialogues and working together that we can achieve this objective. It is a mandate of my ministry to look at current business processes and ensure that they are not impeding business development,” Mr Sinon said.

With the support of the Comesa (Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa) Regional Investment Agency, SIB submitted a request last year to the ACP (Africa-Caribbean-Pacific) Business Climate facility (BizClim), requesting the funding for the setting up of a virtual one- stop shop whereby all regulatory bodies with approved authorities will be connected to an online system that will result in faster and more effective start-up processes. This is an ACP secretariat programme financed by the European Union.

The online system being put in place will, in addition to automate registration procedures, reduce the number of processing days and allow business regulatory to share and maintain accurate business statistics.

The project has been awarded by BizClim to a group of consultants, who are due to arrive in the country this week to look at current business procedures at the various organisations.

The SIB chief executive Sherin Renaud said that the virtual one-stop shop concept is one that has been successfully and effectively introduced in various countries and have contributed significantly in these economies.

“I am confident that with every key organisation involved, consulted and committed in this project our economy will extensively benefit and more importantly the processes for the business entrepreneurs will lessen and be more investor-friendly,” she added.

The key aspect of this project will aim at empowering key stakeholders with specialised knowledge, capacities and analytical skills in undertaking business environment reforms and creating more favourable business and investment conditions in Seychelles.

Through comprehensive study the consultant will understand all the business regulatory authorities in Seychelles, their procedures and functions and the current information management system in use. 

Benchmarking on the best practices, they will then design the most appropriate online system for the authorities that will then feed to the exchange network of the virtual one- stop shop. In this regard, the team of top consultants will advise on necessary and practical adjustments required in the various agencies, advise on processes to make the system effective and efficient while maintaining the mandates and principles of each of these organisations.

Once the most appropriate system has been designed, the consultants will offer technical assistance as well by organising and facilitating a stakeholder’s workshop to promote the concept of the virtual one-stop shop to the government bodies and the private sector organisations and demonstrate how it works.

Other working groups will also be consulted and interacted with to ensure effective implementation and success in improving the business environment.

Contributed