Ugandans defy hard times to register 23,000 new companies
Registration of new business names, however, declined slightly by 2 percent, falling to 27,104. Photo / Edgar R Batte
What you need to know:
- URSB registered 27,104 new companies, which was a 28 percent increase from the 18,614 registered in the same period in the 2021/22 financial year
A Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB) report has indicated that Ugandans, despite experiencing a difficult year, registered a 28 percent increase in new registered companies for the period ending June 2023.
The report, which captures the performance of URSB in terms of services registration and revenue returns, indicates that the agency registered 27,104 new companies, which was a 28 percent increase from the 18,614 registered in the same period in the 2021/22 financial year.
Registration of new business names, however, declined slightly by 2 percent, falling to 27,104 in the 2021/22 financial year to 27,710. The business environment has remained volatile, making it difficult for many business owners to sustain operations.
During the period, URSB also recorded an increase in business liquidation, which rose by 165 percent from 20 liquidations to 53.
Registered insolvency practitioners rose by 36 percent to 118 from just 87 in the same period in the 2021/22 financial year.
Business registration remains a challenge in Uganda, which has increased informalities. However, URSB noted that in its fourth year of implementing its strategic plan, during the financial year 2023/24, it will strengthen the legal and institutional framework to promote competitiveness, simplify processes to ease registration, enhance communication and awareness, and strengthen research and advisory services.
The above are expected to support URSB in improving the business environment, enhancing ease of doing business, and massively register businesses to support the formalization of the economy.
The report also notes that URSB will focus on data cleaning to improve the integrity of the registers and reduce processing times of services to under 30 minutes.
URSB currently operates a fully automated registration system, which has reduced turnaround times to between three to four hours.
Ms Mercy Kainobwisho, the URSB registrar general, said in the report that during the 2022/23 financial year, the Bureau had deployed the Online Business Registration System, which simplified the registration regime that is fully integrated with the National Identification and Registration Authority and Uganda Revenue Authority to support end-to-end seamless registration transactions and processes.
