THE Davao City Business Bureau accepted over 38,000 business renewals and 162 new business registrations during the month-long 2022 Business Renewal in January.
Maribel Paguican, head of the Davao City Business Bureau, said on Monday, February 7, that their office received 38,832 business renewals but only 33,848 were able to pay before the January 31 deadline.
The remaining 4,984 businesses are expected to settle their payments but with corresponding penalties of a 25 percent surcharge and two percent interest per month for succeeding failure of payments.
“Yung iba, paunti-unti pasok ng payment, they had already penalties. During the renewal month kasi walang penalty. May 4,984 tayo na hindi nakahabol doon sa ating deadline so they will be paying in the succeeding days (There are some businesses who are already charged with penalties. We do not impose penalties for the renewal month. A total of 4,984 businesses were not able to pay during the deadline so they will be paying in the succeeding days),” Paguican said in an interview with SunStar Davao on Monday, February 7.
The 162 new business registrations, on the other hand, are only a small fraction of the 2022 target. Paguican said they are expecting at least 10,000 new registrations for this year.
“Understandable na by the month of January, kaunti lang talaga ang mag apply ng new application kasi mostly mga renewals yan. Nasa second and third quarter yan mga new applications (Most of what we receive are renewals. It’s understandable to have only a few new registrations for the month of January because new applications usually come in by the second and third quarter of the year),” she said.
According to Paguican, the majority of these businesses are in the trade, retail, and services industry.
“Halos 75 percent ng ating registration, those retailers and nasa trade and mga service contractors (Almost 75 percent of the registrations are retailers, and trade and service contractors),” she said.
The Business Bureau is still expecting at least 46,000 renewals for 2022 as it is the number of registered businesses last year, as per the office head.
This means there are still 7,006 businesses the office is waiting to be renewed by the end of the year.
“These are those establishments that maybe as of the moment, they are undecided whether to push through or not because of the pandemic,” said Paguican.