Information portal a first stop for business registration

A new information portal will help companies and individuals wanting to expand their business footprint in Africa and beyond. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) and the Global Entrepreneurship Week have introduced a website that lists online business registration systems by country. The Global Enterprise Registration portal (www. globalereg.co) provides a first reference point for business entry into a country. A number of countries in West and East Africa have information portals. Among the most comprehensive are Ethiopia, Congo, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Niger, Rwanda and Togo. Tanzania is currently the only African state with an online single window for business registration. It provides simultaneous registration with the Business Registrations and Licensing Agency (BRELA), the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) and Social Security schemes through the Tanzania Investment Centre. South Africa is not listed. “This portal will spur a race to simplicity among governments to make the business registration process as easy as possible,” says Kurt Tong, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs of the United States of America. “It provides a list of economies that have taken steps towards simplifying business registration. More importantly, it’s a one-stopshop to help entrepreneurs start businesses legally anywhere in the world.”