ISLAMABAD: As part of Doing Business Reforms agenda, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) and the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) have launched a one-window facility for company and national tax number (NTN) registration. Zafar Abdullah, the SECP Chairman, and Khawaja Adnan Zahir, Member (IT) FBR, jointly inaugurated the system during the launch ceremony held on Wednesday at the SECP’s head office which was attended by senior officials of SECP, FBR, BOI and PRAL. Abdullah congratulated the teams of SECP, FBR and PRAL on putting in exhaustive efforts to develop the system. The SECP has undertaken a host of reform measures, which have resulted in a robust corporate growth in the country, leading to formalization of the business sector and documentation of economy, he added. Khawaja Adnan Zahir said that the FBR was pleased to collaborate with SECP to provide conducive environment for doing business in Pakistan. This is the first instance of government-to-government technical integration at the process level, he added. “The creation of a cross-institution single process of registration of a company is the first step and the efforts should be continued to include more organizations. A lot more can be achieved if government organization work in such close coordination.” Fareena Mazhar, Executive Director General, BOI, lauded the efforts of the SECP and FBR for their doing business reforms and stressed that these reforms would not only help the local entrepreneurs but would also serve as an attraction for foreign investors. A video recording based on live company and NTN registration process, which was recorded at the SECP’s Company Registration Office, was also shown to the participants. The one window facility is based on back-end integration between SECP and FBR systems. Through this facility, the entrepreneur will login to the SECP online portal eServices, get the company registered with the SECP and will receive the NTN automatically at company’s email address. The facility has been launched to simplify procedures for business registration, to eliminate the hassle of visiting various government agencies and to ensure an expeditious service delivery by integrating the registration procedures of SECP and FBR. This facility shall have favourable implications for investment promotion to attract investors from within and outside the country, and contribute to documentation of the economy. It is also likely to achieve higher ranking in the World Bank’s starting-a-business and the composite doing business indicator. Published in Daily Times, March 15th 2018.