The Mauritius Government has responded to a recent World Bank report, “Doing Business report 2017”, which highlighted Mauritius’s drop to 49th position (from 32nd) in the ranks of nations considered as efficient in attracting foreign investments.
This new law, which was passed on 20th May 2017, aims at removing some of the penalizing regulatory and administrative constraints from its public procedures, to protect the country’s position as one of the leading world financial centres. The aim is also to drive along the private sector in this endeavour, given the increasing competition from other jurisdictions.
The Government recognized the need to streamline procedures and press for reforms to facilitate a more attractive business environment, by adapting practices to the new international expectations and “raise its standards to higher levels”.
The main elements of the Act are:
• Easing business set up (corporate environment):
- With the aim to permit the set-up of businesses within one working day
- Register businesses and incorporate companies within 2 hours
- Move to digital procedures, review and remove some of the old procedures and practices, issue Certificates of Incorporation electronically and remove the need of company seals for domestic companies.
• Set up of a national E-licensing platform (corporate environment), to:
- Provide a single point of entry for permit and license applications
- Centralize licenses on a single electronic registry
• Improving insolvency procedures (corporate environment)
• Improving the process of property registration (real estate sector)
• Easing the process and issue of construction permits (real estate sector)
For further information on Mauritius, please contact Douglas Peters at d.peters@rosemont.mu from Rosemont Management (Mauritius) Ltd