ISLAMABAD: Ahead of the World Bank’s ease of doing business index review in October, the steering committee of the Pakistan Regulatory Modernisation Initiative (PRMI) on Monday held its third meeting to speed up the pace of reform implementation within the given time-frame.

The committee, chaired by Adviser on Commerce to PM Abdul Razak Dawood, encouraged all provinces and regions to adopt business-friendly initiatives.

The committee, which was announced by PM Khan last year, has implemented several reforms in consultation with provinces which translated into an improvement in the country’s ranking on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business by 28 places to 108 in 2019.

The meeting reviewed in detail the implementation of reforms in three areas: mapping of existing procedures for grant of registrations, licenses, certificates, other permits (RLCOs); identifying unnecessary, redundant, cumbersome processes, elimination of non-essential RLCOs, which is also called Regulatory Guillotine and review of local government licensing regime.

On the issue of mapping of RLCOs, Punjab and Sindh have made substantial progress. However, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir have requested technical assistance to carry out the exercise.

To abolish unnecessary licensing regimes for traders, Punjab, KP, and Islamabad Capital Territory administration have established committees to identify such licenses for removal.

The KP government has successfully completed this exercise, while Punjab and ICT administration have made considerable progress.

Published in Dawn, June 30th, 2020