DEVELOPING and reforming business registries in the Pacific Islands is essential if the region wants to build an efficient and flourishing corporate sector, delegates said at a workshop jointly organized by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the New Zealand Ministry of Economic Development’s New Zealand Companies Office.

The workshop, held today in Auckland, was attended by New Zealand government officials, donor partners and private sector representatives.

ADB, in partnership with the New Zealand Companies Office, is assisting Pacific governments to develop business registries in Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and other Pacific countries.

“Modern and efficient business registries help reduce the cost of doing business, encourage compliance, and ensure fair trading and consumer protection through appropriate regulation," said Eugenue Zhukov, Regional Director of ADB’s office in Australia. “We look forward to progressing Pacific registry development in partnership with New Zealand.”

Business registries – which gather information on companies – make it easier for suppliers to find each other or for customers to find manufacturers, for example. If the registries are available online, companies in remote locations can do business more efficiently and have access to legal and other information that they would normally only find in far off capital cities.

At the workshop, participants discussed setting up a new business registry, citing recent experiences in Solomon Islands and Tonga and looked at international trends in business registries.

Business registry development is part of a larger regional effort by ADB to help introduce business laws that are suitable for island economies which tend to be small, and where communities and businesses are often spread over a wide geographical area separated by ocean.

The Solomon Islands will soon launch its new electronic Companies Registry funded by ADB and AusAID and will be supported by the New Zealand Companies Office. The new Registry will enable the company registration process to be a paperless one.

Establishment of a business registry in Solomon Islands is part of ADB’s Private Sector Development Initiative (PSDI) which started in 2006 with co-financing from the Australian Government. The initiative supports efforts by developing member countries in the Pacific to encourage private sector-led, sustainable economic growth. ADB, 4/03/11.