Haiti sees eRegulations as vital tool for investment, private-sector development and reconstruction

Haiti’s Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr. Wilson Laleau, has underlined his country’s need for simplified administrative procedures and has submitted a formal request to UNCTAD Secretary-General Supachai Panitchpakdi for implementation of the UNCTAD eRegulations programme.

 

Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 19 January 2010 (Photo: CaribPress)

The complexity of the administrative procedures currently in place in Haiti is hampering the ongoing rebuilding of the country’s physical and economic infrastructure, which was severely damaged in the 2010 earthquake. In addition, it is discouraging investment and delaying private-sector development. Haiti is therefore seeking to implement improved, simplified and fast-tracked administrative procedures.

 

Haiti already suffered from inefficient administrative procedures before the earthquake. On average, transferring a property would take 405 days, obtaining a construction permit would take 1,179 days, setting up a company would take 195 days, and getting imported goods out of Customs would take 33 days.

After the earthquake, which caused the destruction of public buildings and equipment and the loss of public archives, and led to serious disorganization in administrative processes, there have been even more dramatic delays.

 

Mr. Wilson Laleau (centre) with President Michel Martelly (right) announcing e-governance initiative

In February, Minister Laleau had announced a new modernization project to reduce from 105 days to 10 days the registration of limited companies in Haiti as part of an "E-governance" programme.

 

The eRegulations system developed by UNCTAD, provides a methodology for simplifying administrative procedures and presenting them to the public in a transparent and easily understandable way.

The first step in applying the eRegulations system in Haiti will be to undertake a census of the procedures applicable to the economic operations that are considered the most important to rebuilding and recovery. Once the procedures have been described in detail, they can be simplified and then made available to the public via the Internet.

Easier and swifter formalities are expected to encourage foreign and domestic investment and to spur private-sector development. They are also expected to facilitate formalization of the hundreds of thousands of microenterprises that are currently working extralegally. This would boost productive capacities, and multiply employment and income-generation opportunities. It would also increase the Government’s revenues, and, therefore, its ability to invest in reconstruction of Haiti’s physical, economic and administrative infrastructure.