BY EPN
MBABANE – The Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Trade continues to deliver interventions which significantly improve the ease of doing business in the Kingdom of Eswatini. The latest improvement in the ease of doing business in the country is the introduction of the online “one-stop-shop” for business compliance.
The Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Trade recently held a stakeholder workshop on the Electronic Business Registry. The e-Business Registry will form part of Eswatini’s upcoming One Stop Shop project and aims to improve ease of doing business under the cluster of ‘Starting a Business’.
Among other things, the e-Business Registry will include the current system of online registration of companies and improve internal business registry processes. The online registry workshop comes only a few days after the Minister of Finance, Neal Rijkenberg, announced that the Eswatini Revenue Services authority is introducing a programme which will see over a billion Emalangeni in income tax liabilities pardoned to decrease the compliance-related liabilities of businesses in the country. These measures are all designed to encourage business development in the Kingdom of Eswatini by making it easier for businesses to operate in the country.
The Kingdom of Eswatini is rated as number 121 of 190 countries in the world in terms of Ease of Doing Business, as according to the World Bank’s most recent ratings (2019). The current interventions are expected to significantly improve the country’s ease of doing business as measured by the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business index.
“As a a country as we are trying to recover the economy from the challenges that came with COVID-19,” said Minister of Commerce, Industry and Trade, Manqoba Khumalo.
Stakeholders attended the stakeholder workshop on the Electronic Business Registry to make sure that it addresses the needs of players in the country’s business environment.
