ARTA: ADVANCING THE EASE OF DOING BUSINESS IN THE PHILIPPINES
ARTA’S Initiatives (on the macro perspective) are Improving Quality of Regulations; Mapping & Streamlining Process; Digitalization of Services; Securing Compliance; and Legal & Public Assistance.
ARTA is working on streamlining and optimization of regulations and processes on sectors with significant impact on the economy through Assessment (Training, Manual, Workbook, PGRP), Business Process Reengineering, Transformation Hub.
For the ARTA’s initiatives in the food and pharmaceutical sector, they recommend and lead policy and process reforms for Inter-agency process. They also facilitate coordination, dialogs, and collaboration among public and private stakeholders. Lastly, they give immediate and proactive response and measures to Emerging Issues in the Sector.
The Food and Pharmaceuticals Sector has been identified as one of the priority sectors for the Phase II of their NEHEMIA program with Food Production, Processing, and Service as three (3) of the industries studied under the Modernizing Government Regulations (MGR) Program of the Development Academy of the Philippines in 2016.
ARTA and FDA determined the cause of bottlenecks and delays in FDA’s systems and processes and came up with recommendations and reforms to address these challenges. Part of these is the streamlining of the process and requirements for the License to Operate (LTO) issued by the different centers of FDA.
FDA STREAMLINING REFORMS: After the linkage of the FDA LTO to the Philippine Business Hub (formerly known as the Central Business Portal) was finalized on 28 January 2021, both the integration and the revised guidelines for LTO have effectively reduced the combined requirements, processing time, steps for new business permit and initial LTO for drug traders and distributors.
Similar to this previous undertaking with the Center for Drug Regulation and Research (CDRR), the ARTA intends to link also the Center for Food Regulation and Research.
