Enelamah: Business registration can now be completed in 48 hours

Okechukwu Enelamah, minister of industry, trade and investment, says intending enterprises can now complete their registration with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) within 48 hours.

The minister made this known while speaking at the 10th meeting of the National Council on Industry, Trade and Investment, with the theme, ‘Ease of Doing Business: The Role of States and Local Governments’ in Abia.

On trading across borders, Enelamah listed some of the completed reforms to include the reduction in import documentation requirements from 14 to eight and export documents from 10 to seven, an introduction of advance cargo manifests and scheduling of joint physical examination anchored by the Nigerian Customs Service.

He listed other reforms to include the passage and signing into law of two bills to ease access to credit for MSMEs.

“These two Bills are the Secured Transactions in Movable Assets Act 2017 and the Credit Reporting Act 2017,” he said in Abia on Friday.

“Business registration in Nigeria can now be concluded within 48 hours with the automated platform by the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC),” he said.

“Technologies were deployed to improve service delivery in the Ministries in the areas of SME platform, digitizing and simplifying the provision of government services. Examples include Commercial Law Department in our Ministry, digitizing One Stop Investment Centre and Pioneer Status Incentives Processes at the Nigeria Investment Promotion Council.”

He said the reforms by the federal government can only work with collaboration of state and local government.

“For instance, State Governments should undertake reforms process of making land documentation and business registration seamless as resolved at the 9th Meeting of the National Council. Nigeria can only progress on the Ease- of- Doing Business initiative on the basis of collaboration among the key stakeholders, especially the State Governments.”