ASEAN members to enhance collaboration to improve regulatory environment

MANILA — Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will work and collaborate to further improve good regulatory practices (GRP) meant to foster connectivity and competitiveness.

“There is a demand for a concerted regional level of coordination and cooperation for administrative simplification to enable the GRP agenda. Thus, we must find a way to connect this to our common regional work plan,” said Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia.

Pernia said strategies included building and enhancing the capacity of ASEAN countries for GRP implementation and involving relevant stakeholders.

Around 80 delegates from ASEAN member states gathered during the third ASEAN-OECD Good Regulatory Practice Network (GRPN) meeting last March 14 to 16 in Iloilo City.

The meeting was hosted by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) and co-chaired by the governments of Malaysia and New Zealand.

The ASEAN GRP Network also explored ways to link the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with global value chains (GVCs) through easing regulatory burden and simplifying administrative processes within the region.

“We firmly believe that there are potential opportunities for ASEAN SMEs to be part of and benefit from the global value chains if regulatory constraints are correctly addressed,” added Pernia, also NEDA Director-General.

Guillermo “Bill” Luz, who is private sector co-Chairman of the Philippine National Competitiveness Council (NCC), shared Philippine efforts in easing regulatory burden for investors and to promote competitiveness among businesses.

One initiative of the NCC is Project REPEAL, a project that allows government agencies, business organizations and individuals to identify regulations and laws that they find burdensome and unnecessary. These are reviewed by a technical working group, and are submitted back to agencies for proper action.

So far, a total of 22,599 rules and regulations have already been submitted for review, of which 3,765 have already been acted on. Eighty government agencies are currently on board. (PNA)