Registration of new organizations hits an all-time high
Registration of new organizations in Bangladesh rose to an all-time most of 11,110 within the last fiscal year, highlighting the expansion of business activities and people's enthusiasm about setting up fresh ventures, official figures showed.
The figure is 24.32 % higher from the fiscal year of 2018-19, when 8,936 registrations were taken, according to data from any office of the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies and Firms (RJSC).
"The financial activities hampered for some months as a result of the coronavirus pandemic are actually picking right up," said Md Mokbul Hossain, registrar of the RJSC.
The office of the RJSC is mandated to provide name clearances and registration to all or any public companies, private companies, liaison offices or branches of foreign companies, trade organisations, societies and partnership organizations in Bangladesh.
Registration obtained for establishing new companies rose 50 per cent to 9,010 in FY20 from 6,945 this past year. Some 250 registrations were taken up to establish societies and 1,827 for partnership firms, respectively up from 229 and 1,740 this past year.
In the first two months of the existing fiscal year, 2,279 registrations were obtained from the RJSC, including 1,892 for companies, 45 for societies and 228 for partnership firms.
Some 245,655 registrations were secured from the RJSC so far. They include 3,532 for public limited companies, 175,932 for private limited companies, 932 for foreign firms, 49,180 for partnership firms, 1,121 for trade bodies and 14,958 for societies.
"The prospective entrepreneurs have to take initiatives, make some investments and proceed through procedures to get started on new businesses. With this, they have shown credible interest. So, it is a more meaningful data," said Zahid Hussain, a former lead economist of the World Bank's Dhaka office.
"It also should be seen whether all the proposed ventures are setup finally," he said.
Any office of the RJSC may be the first fully automated office among all government offices in Bangladesh, Mokbul Hossain said.
"All services are given online."
Service-seekers need not come to the RJSC to secure registration. They must apply online and pay costs online. The name clearance is auto-generated.
After obtaining the name clearance, companies have to make an application for registration and submit the mandatory documents. The registration is given within four hours, that used to have a month during the past. It is also given electronically, said Hossain, also yet another secretary.
Payments to the RJSC can be made through debit and credit cards. The agency can be attempting to allow payment through mobile financial services.
But the office is yet to be fully paperless. Hard copies of some documents are still accepted.
Copies such as for example balance sheets, audit reports, share transfers documents, and copies of the twelve-monthly general meetings must be submitted in hard-copy forms.
"If you have a file containing 50 pages, it is best to examine and scrutinise them using hardcopies," Hossain said.
To store documents as per the firms Act, some hard copies also need to be obtained.
"We've detailed plans to digitalise all services," Hossain said.
He said while transferring shares, people do have to come to go to RJSC offices. Once the digital signature is set up, people will not should do that. People even can do that all over the world.
The RJSC is currently attempting to introduce digital signatures for service-seekers. "This might allow the agency to scrutinise documents speedily and help establish a paperless office," Hossain said.
This past year, the agency signed agreements with the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority, the Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority, the Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority, and the Bangladesh Hi-tech Park Authority to talk about information and verify information through a one-stop service and put in place data integration.
A data centre and a data recovery centre ought to be established as quickly as possible to keep electronic records, Hossain said.
It also issues certified companies of files and records. Companies need to secure permission from the agency if they want to wind up operations.
