Estonia, Good for Business, Internet, Investments, Markets and Companies, Technology

Most likely this is a world record time for registering a company, according to Peeter Smitt, Middle East region Managing Director at Nortal. „In Estonia it takes about one day to register a company and as far as I know, the record is 18 minutes. However, in most countries it is not unusual that this process takes weeks or months,“ added Smitt.

According to Smitt, Invest Easy portal gives entrepreneurs an access to a wide variety of necessary e-services that in Estonia, for instance, are considered already a standard that most entrepreneurs can’t imagine operating without. „Before, one needed to apply for a licence to start a business or engage in any type of commercial activity in Oman. This was time consuming and relatively complex process that included visiting different government authorities. Today, already 210 economic activities in Oman are unlicensed, meaning one can start with business activities right after the registration is completed. Invest Easy project does not only focus on digitalisation of paper based services, but makes the business environment as a whole easier, more effective and has a strong impact on local entrepreneurs and business climate,“ he added.

The portal gives Omani entrepreneurs access to government e-services such as: starting a business, updating company info in commercial register, finding information for licensing terms and submitting digital licence application, preparing financial report, closing business and various other important services for the entrepreneurs. Today, Invest Easy brings together 66 different services to one easy portal.

„The total number of legal persons registered in Oman increased from 19 228 in 2014 to 26 699 in 2015,“ said Smitt. Starting a business using Invest Easy portal is gaining popularity and in April 2016 already 30% of registrations were completed using the portal.

The Invest Easy portal is an initiative led by Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoCI) and Information Technology Authority (ITA). The backbone of the portal is Oman’s National Business Register. Standardisation and re-organisation of the register has been a substantial part of the project. Today 14 governmental authorities have joined the business register, further complementing it and using the data available via portal.

For identification, electronic ID-cards are used, a solution relatively new to Oman, but widely used for all eGov services and digital signatures in Estonia, for instance. First PKI-activated (public key infrastructure) ID-cards were issued in Oman in 2013.

Invest Easy portal development started in the beginning of 2014, work has been completed in stages and project is due to be finalised Summer 2016.