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Business Licensing and Regulatory Governance

Burdensome regulatory regimes and inefficient government bureaucracies are the two major impediments to a healthy and thriving investment climate. Poorly planned regulation places unnecessary demands on business and imposes additional costs that discourage entrepreneurs and inhibit economic innovation. FIAS' Business Licensing and Regulatory Governance team helps client countries streamline and improve the quality of regulations with the following purpose:

to create a regulatory environment less restrictive for business;
to encourage and increase foreign and domestic investment;
to increase protection for all citizens;
to reduce corruption.

In its approach, FIAS goes beyond cutting red tape to advise regulators in designing systemic changes that deliver sustainable good regulatory performance. This product adopts a comprehensive top-down, and where possible, fast-track approach. Based on what is sometimes called "staged repeal" or the "guillotine", this method promotes radical licensing reforms whereby all licenses not actively justified by the regulators are eliminated by default.

The Business Licensing Advisory Service engages client governments in the creation of regulatory reform mechanisms to ensure that reform gains are not eroded by new poorly defined regulations. Furthermore, a typical licensing reform project is supported by the creation of an electronic regulatory registry of all valid licenses in force and a medium-term regulatory reform strategy to support more systemic reforms of the business environment.

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