Overview

Doing Business in the Philippines 2011—the second subnational report in the series following Doing Business in the Philippines 2008—compares the regulatory environment for business in 25 cities in the Philippines. The report focuses on national and local regulations that affect 3 stages in the life of a small to medium-size domestic firm: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, and registering property.

Where is it easiest to do business in the Philippines?

Main Findings

• Over the past two years, 13 out of 20 cities in the Philippines carried out 19 regulatory reforms to make it easier to start and operate a business.
• Starting a business is easiest in General Santos, where it takes 22 days and costs 15.3% of income per capita to comply with the 17 requirements. It is more difficult in San Juan, where it requires 21 procedures that take 39 days and cost 26.3%.
• Dealing with construction permits is easiest in Davao City, where it takes 57 days, but more cumbersome in Manila, where it takes 169 days. Local requirements remain responsible for the variation in the number of steps required to build a warehouse.
• It is easiest to register property in Valenzuela and Navotas and more difficult in Cagayan de Oro and General Santos—differences are mainly driven by the performance of national government agencies.
• Each of the 25 cities benchmarked in the report could learn from each other’s best practices.

The project was done in collaboration with the Asian Institute of Management Policy Center.