MANILA -- The Philippine Business Hub (PBH), a single digital platform for registering businesses in the country, will be relaunched by key government agencies on 20 June 2022.

The relaunch of the PBH, formerly known as the Central Business Portal, will be led by the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), the Anti-Red Tape Authority (ARTA), the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to localize the program and launch the new look for the website.

The Quezon City local government, whose services are also integrated in the PBH, will be hosting the event.

Through the establishment of the PBH, the length of days for registering businesses was reduced from 33 days and 13 steps to only seven days with only one step. ARTA is aiming to further reduce this period to a single day by the end of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s term.

During his sixth and final State of the Nation Address (SONA) in July 2021, President Duterte called on the subsequent administrations to continue using the PHB.

“We have this legacy, and we hope to pass on this establishment of Central Business Portal, a single site for all business-related transactions, such as securing business permits, licenses, and clearances,” he said.

“This shall certainly elevate our global business standing in the doing business arena and improve our country’s competitiveness,” he added.

The relaunch was done in a bid to encourage more corporations and government agencies to onboard the said portal.

Since its launch in January, the services of at least 1,662 corporations and government agencies have been integrated into the PBH.

In the coming months, ARTA aims to further improve the PBH through its Business Process Mapping (BPM) project, that entails mapping all the permits and licenses involved in the entire business cycle and integrating it to the PBH.

It envisions a “womb-to-tomb” approach that covers not only permits on starting a business, but also those that concern operating and closing a business.

Other agencies that will be part of the launch include the Social Security System (SSS), Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth), Pag-IBIG, Department of Finance (DOF), Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), LANDBANK, Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Cooperative Development Authority (CDA). (BIR)