Economy Ministry and USAID/BIZTAR assess impact of licenses on business environment

The inventorying of the legal licenses goes on. The activity was started in May by the Ministry of Economy and the USAID/BIZTAR Project as part of the regulatory reform. During the first phase of license inventorying, it was determined that 55 public authorities issued about 450 authorizations, certificates, permits and other legal licenses for starting and running businesses, Info-Prim Neo reports. According to USAID/BIZTAR expert Alexandru Sava, the participants in the meetings involving representatives of 750 companies said many of the legal licenses are similar, the issuing conditions are strict, while the payments levied represent double taxation. During the second phase, there will be assessed the impact of the licenses on the business environment. “The assessment will help us determine if a particular document is necessary or not,” Alexandru Sava said. Over 200 licenses of the total 450 have been assessed so far. “A public authority often issues a particular license without payment, but the applicant must present an expert appraisal certificate that costs money,” Alexandru Sava said. The expert also said that the sums paid for being issued with legal licenses are not usually transferred to the state budget, but to the budgets of the respective authorities. The companies do not understand why they should pay for such certificates as those showing they do not have salary arrears. The second phase will be completed at the end of October. The irrelevant or similar licenses will be annulled. The remaining ones will be included in a special register that will be accessible to companies.