CIPC wins award, registers almost 12 000 new companies a month

1st March 2021 By: Yvonne Silaule - Contributor

Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Ebrahim Patel has congratulated South Africa’s Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) for winning awards from the Centre for Public Service Innovation.

The CIPC won the Most Innovative Public Service Entity of the Year award for 2020, as well as the Effective Use Of Digitised Services award for its Bizportal online registration system.

Patel said that, on average, close to 12 000 new companies were registered each month, including during the Covid lockdown period.

"More than 145 000 companies had registered between November 2019 and February 2021 using the system, with the process normally taking less than a day," he pointed out.

“The Bizportal has made the lives of entrepreneurs and businesses persons easier and simple and has cut red tape since being launched in 2019. The CIPC has embraced new technologies to speed up its services and widen access. This improves the ease of doing business in South Africa and helps with the economic recovery programmes of government. The Bizportal makes it easier for new entrants and young people to start businesses," he added.

Patel noted that further improvements would be made to the Bizportal system.

“We now have an excellent service and must strengthen it and enable more South Africans to use it to open their own businesses and drive job-creation and economic activities,” he said.