缅甸投资与公司管理局(DICA)降低中小企业（SME）注册费用

DICA Reduces SME Registration Fee

Phyo Thu/MBT

A clothes screening working site in Yangon

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) will now only need to pay K250,000 for company registration — half of the previous amount — according toa press release by Directorate of Investment and Company Administration (DICA) on March 13.

DICA has reduced the registration fee to K500,000 from K1 million in July 2016.

The press release said that the Ministry of Planning and Finance reduced the registration fee for private companies in order to help SMEs develop and encourage unregistered enterprises to start registering.

‘‘We are trying to improve Statistics & Business Strategy set by World Bank and realize that they take measurements on time and costwhen applying for SME licenses. With that in mind, we reduced the registration fee so that SMEs can easily apply for registration,’’ U Min Zaw Oo, Director of DICA, said.

Registered SMEs will have more advantages when collaborating with international companies, and so do the registered trading companies with more trading opportunities, he said.

Moreover, as registering gives companies easy access to financial services and more advantages in export, DICA cut the registration fees to encourage SMEs to register, U Than Aung Kyaw, Deputy Director of DICA, once said.

According to MIC, there are over 50,000 registered companies in Myanmar, and they need to renew their licenses every five years.

DICA is also trying to make the company registration process available online by next August.