Investors One Stop Centre officially launched
The Namibia Investment Promotion and Development Board (NIPDB) on Friday launched the investors One Stop Centre (OSC).
The NIPDB amongst others is mandated to improve the country’s competitiveness and the Ease of Doing Business.
“In its bid to improve the ease of doing business and subsequently Namibia’s ranking the NIPDB established an investor’s One Stop Centre that we are launching here,” said the Minister of Industrialisation and Trade Lucia Iipumbu (MIT), adding that this is a crucial investment facilitation mechanism where relevant government offices are coordinated at a single point to provide prompt, efficient and transparent services to investors to ultimately shortens and simplifies administrative procedures and guidelines thereby removing bottlenecks faced by both local and foreign investors in establishing and running businesses in Namibia.
The center further aims to streamline procedures for new and existing investors to enable them to easily conduct their businesses in a conducive investment environment.
“The improvement of our country’s Ease of Doing Business is a critical precondition in ensuring that this strategic objective is fulfilled, through the operationalization of the investor’s One Stop Centre. The OSC exists to facilitate prompt, efficient, timely, and transparent services as well as boost the
confidence of both local and foreign investors in all productive sectors of the economy,” she said.
According to Iipumbu, this is a single access point for information and services to investors, housing
nine (9) Public Entities that are critical to the investment facilitation process.
Investors will be dealing directly with the OSC, which is situated at the NIPDB headquarters, here in Windhoek.
The services offered by the OSC will range from consultations, business information, facilitation of visas and work permit applications, and provision of relevant information regarding business
registration services such as business establishment, income tax, VAT, and investment support, amongst many others.
“I am happy to note that the OSC will be complemented by a Working Committee, composed of public and private sector stakeholders who will responsible for driving change in the domestic economy regarding the ease of doing business,” she added.
The Working Committee is expected to deliver on a specific set of key deliverables.
“In our bid to attract and facilitate investments, the Ministry of Industrialisation and Trade (MIT) in collaboration with other stakeholders is currently at the consultative stage of enacting a revised Namibian investment law to facilitate the attraction of investments and growth of sectors as per the new investments dictates and other strategic investment priorities of the country. The creation of a One Stop Centre is therefore provided for within this revised Bill,” she added.
Iipumbu meanwhile said MIT saw it fit to shore up and revive our Investment regulatory and policy
regime to embrace a modern and transparent legal framework that accommodates new economic dynamics and developments to ensure that Namibia leverages dimensions that cover new economic and investment priority areas.
