OREANDA-NEWS. January 15, 2008. The Belarusian government has introduced a decree to simplify the registration and liquidation of companies. The document was developed by the Ministry of Justice, in cooperation with IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, IFC's press service reported. It introduces the declarative principle of registration and cuts twofold the minimum charter capital requirements for new legal entities.

Under the new decree, registration authorities are not required to verify documents that are submitted for state registration by a start-up, but the applicant is liable for any inappropriate information. Also, except for those seeking licensing, applicants are not required to disclose their business lines in founding documents. The decree incorporates most of IFC’s proposals on simplifying registration.

“The proposed changes are truly revolutionary for Belarus.  By reducing the time for registering a business to five days, Belarus may well be on the road to becoming among the fastest countries in the region for starting a business,” said Valery Fadeev, IFC Senior Legal Adviser.
 
IFC has collaborated with the Ministry of Justice on simplifying business registration since 2004. In 2006, a joint conference entitled, “Business Registration: International Experience and its Application in Belarus” was held. This resulted in a decree that introduced the one-stop-shop principle and decreased the time for government agencies to register a business, from a maximum of 41 days to 30 days. IFC Belarus Business Enabling Environment Project organized study tours to Sweden for Belarusian state officials have been utilized to familiarize them with new business concepts for business registration and small and medium enterprise administrative reforms.

The Belarus Business Enabling Environment Project is jointly funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and IFC.