Roadmap to the Implementation of the Commercial Register in Lebanon - Salam Yamout

1. Republic of Lebanon
Presidency of the Council of Ministers
Office of the Prime Minister
Roadmap to the Implementation of the
Commercial Register in Lebanon
Salam Yamout - National ICT Strategy Coordinator
CRF2015, AbuDhabi - March 10, 2015
Republic of Lebanon
Presidency of the Council of Ministers
Office of the Prime Minister

2. Agenda
• Background
• Implementation of the Company Registration One Stop Shop Project
• Business Benefits – Expected Outcomes
• Questions
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3. The Lebanese Commercial Register
• Legislated by Article 23 of the “Code du Commerce”
• Tool to collect and disseminate information about companies
• Information is provided by the companies who are
responsible for the content of this information
• The Commercial Register is operated by the Ministry of Justice
and supervised by specialized judiciary
• No control function by the government
• Automation started in 2002
• More than 10,000 companies have been digitized, indexed,
and archived
• cr.justice.gov.lb
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4. The Need for Reform
• During 2014, the Government of Lebanon requested TA from
International Finance Corporation (IFC) to improve its company
registration process
• The current automation procedure runs side by side with the
manual paper procedure
– backlog in digitization
– Digitized information is not authenticated and not reliable
• It takes several days and multiple stops to register a company
 New strategy and roadmap to reform the process of business
registration in the country based on implementing a “One Stop Shop”
as a Single Point of Contact for the interaction of the Lebanese private
sector (businesses) with the public administration
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5. Strategy for Reform
The Commercial Register reform has been scheduled within successive
phases in the roadmap:
• Short-term: initial 12 months, focuses on “quick” results, achieved under
the auspices of the present legislation and organizational set up.
• Mid-term: period between the 12th and the 24th month, fully functional
OSS by adequate legislation changes and technological improvements
• Long-term: period between the 24th and the 36th month, emphasising the
benefits of the already established OSS through development of additional
services, but also by supporting the further development of the sole
registration institution and its operation
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6. Implementation of the Company Registration One Stop Shop
(Phase 1 – Short Term Scenario)
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The project is the first of its kind in Lebanon, hence will be labeled “Dawlati 2.0”. In
addition to implementing electronic inter-operability between several administrations,
it includes many of the building blocks of e-government.
Specifically, the project includes the following components:
• Create an end-to-end electronic transactional e-service for the basic transactions
of the Commercial Registry (businesses and citizens to use the One Stop Shop for
company registration).
• Develop the building blocks for Dawlati 2.0, including:
– e-Services catalogue and e-billing
– Enterprise Service Bus
– Digital Identity Platform
• Upgrade the existing IT systems at the Commercial Registry
– Registration & Archiving System for the Commercial Registry

7. Stakeholders
• The need for coordination
• Inter-operability by consensus
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Ministry of Justice
The office of the Prime Minister
Commercial Courts
Ministry of Finance (Tax Administration)
National Social Security Fund
Ministry of Economy
Central Bank of Lebanon
Bar Association
Office of the Minister of State for Administrative Reform (OMSAR)
Ministry of Interior

8. One Stop Shop (OSS) Information Exchange
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MOJ
Commercial
Register
NSSF
MOF
TAX DEPT
Bar
Association
BILLING
&PAYMENT
ORDER
PAYMENT
Attorney (Short-term)
Citizen
Digital
Identity
Platform
Pay Fees
Clearance
Login
Send ApplicationAuthenticate
Send Certificate
Assign #
Info
Assign #
Info
Billing
Payment System

9. One Stop Shop (OSS) Information Exchange
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CR Single
Register of
Legal Entities
Legal Entity
ID Generator
Legend
Upgrade of existing systems
New systems / components
External systems / components
Logical components
MOF
NSSF
BDL
Other
institutions
MOF
BAR
BAR
eT

10. Business Benefits – Expected Outcomes
• Unification of the reporting requirements of the business community
• Implementation of electronic data exchange and interoperability among
complementary state bodies
• Decrease of bureaucratic work and the associated costs
• Decrease of implementation, maintenance and operation costs
• Implementation of electronic services
• Support of the overall eco-system and business life cycle
• Ensuring validity and correctness of data and reduce fraud
• Minimizing data redundancy
• Gathering meaningful data about companies operating in Lebanon
• Providing easily governed scalable architecture for further interoperable services
• Ability to start a company the same day
• Ability to pay online for services
• Accurate and online Commercial Register data available to all online
• Ability to interface with international companies
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11. Targets and Goals
The entire project will be executed within 2 years, with the following targets and goals:
• By the end of 2015
– Establish LGIF to steer implementation projects;
– Establish risk-free process of conversion of company data;
– Engage BAR with the CR reform;
– Create national e-Payment platform;
– Establish Unique Legal Entity ID (LEID).
• By the end of 2016
– Establish fully automated OSS;
– Establish modern CR system to support the reform;
– Establish standalone CR portal for all of its users;
– Clean DB of companies with assigned LEID;
– Establish national Brokered ESB;
– Establish Single Sign On through a national Digital Identity Platform (DIP).
• In the beginning of 2017
– Upgrade DAWLATI 2.0 to represent fully transactional PSC in Lebanon.
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12. QUESTIONS
Thank You
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