Cahul One-stop-shop’s success encourages businessmen and enthuse other regions
33 businesses have got their trade licenses trouble-free since the inauguration of One Stop Shop Online Cahul
As a book-keeper in a small company Valentina Capraru is also responsible for dealing with the authorities. Last year it took her three months, tens of visits and a lot of money to obtain a trade license. To open a business in Cahul one should have had the signatures from 5 different offices.
In April 2005 USAID BIZPRO/Moldova assisted its regional partner, the Cahul branch of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in opening One-stop-shop Online, a trade licensing office that connected digitally all the authorities involved. Now it takes only one visit, 130 Moldavian lei (~10 USD) and no direct contacts with local authorities to get the license.
One-stop-shop Cahul works like this: the requests are sent by local net to the Police, the Fire Department, the Treasury, the Sanitary Inspection and the Mayoralty. They have 5 days to reply. If any of them give no answer to the online approval request in five days, their silence is considered as endorsement. After ten days the businessperson is invited to take his license. This way there is no contact between the businessperson and the authorities. The entrepreneur also gets free of charge consultancy on the documents he needs for opening a business.
This year Valentina had a better job offer from a car selling company. She accepted. And again she was set responsible for obtaining the business license. "After filling the papers for license request at the One-stop-shop Online I asked the operator where I should go next. She smiled and told me - nowhere. They called me after 8 days to take my license". “Pasaj Elita” car shop’s inauguration was a big event in the city. In the first day of activity it sold a car. Another one was sold after a week. For a little town in Moldova this is a promising start.
“Our major achievement is that after filling the request, the businessmen are free. While earlier the officials treated them with the "Come-Tomorrow" strategy”.
Simion PLATON, CCI Cahul Director
In five months 33 companies benefited from One-stop-shop Online Cahul’s activity. They had their trade license delivered in ten days and even less. Eight more requests are in work. One-stop-shop Online proves to be an efficient approach for supporting business initiative, for speeding up the licensing process and for fighting corruption. Cahul’s successful experience was revealing for other regions in Moldova. Four more one-stop-shops are to open with USAID BIZPRO/Moldova support in Hincesti, Soroca, Edinet and Ungeni by the end of October, 2005. It seems that a business-friendly revolution is spreading quickly through Moldova.
