The Companies Registry is working at full speed to enhance its computer system with a view to launching electronic incorporation of companies and a one-stop service for electronic company incorporation and business registration in the 2010-11 financial year.

This was revealed by the Registrar of Companies, Ms Ada Chung, at a press briefing today (September 21).

“We are moving full steam ahead in developing Phase II of the Integrated Companies Registry Information System (ICRIS II) to launch electronic incorporation.”

“With the new electronic services in place, the time required to incorporate a company online will be significantly reduced from four working days to less than one day,” Ms Chung said.

To further enhance the Companies Registry’s services, Ms Chung also proposed to streamline the company name registration system. The proposal, apart from further expediting the incorporation process, would empower the Registrar of Companies to substitute the names of companies which fail to comply with the Registrar’s directions to change names with their respective company registration numbers.

“In collaboration with the Inland Revenue Department, we will also take the opportunity to implement a one-stop service for company incorporation and business registration.”

“This will allow applicants to incorporate companies and obtain business registration certificates at the same time. The whole process will be completed within the same day for online applications,” Ms Chung said.

“Legislative amendments to the Companies Ordinance and the Business Registration Ordinance are required before the new initiatives can be implemented.

“We hope the amendments can be enacted next year,” Ms Chung said.

Besides electronic incorporation of companies, the legislative amendments to the Companies Ordinance also cover other initiatives including introducing new provisions to allow local companies to communicate with their members through the companies’ websites; providing a statutory basis for multiple statutory derivative actions and removing statutory restrictions to pave way for scripless shareholding and paperless transfers.

As at August 31, a total of 751,159 live local companies were registered under the Companies Ordinance. A record high of 20,251 companies were incorporated in March this year and another record of 12,594 companies were incorporated in August.

“We believe this is mainly due to the effect of waiver of business registration fees for new companies,” Ms Chung said.

Hong Kong Registrar of Companies

In the final trading day for the year, Hongkong’s stock market madly went after bargain blue chips giving a new variant to the term Christmas shopping. As a result, the index climbed to a record breaking year 37% increase.

The market corrected a bit too much on Friday over fears that China will implement credit tightening measures. Since that didn’t happen, speculation that there are plenty of priced bargains waiting to be bought and the excitement brought by new issues from the mainland among others, made the Hong Kong market very busy on the last day. Despite that, turn over was weak (at only $43.36 Billion) and was way below than 2007’s daily average (of more than US $ 88 Billion).

Wanting to become the world’s most business friendly destination, Hongkong is cutting state taxes on salaries and corporate profits down to 16.5% and 15% respectively by 2009. This is further made sweeter by the fact that the actual taxes paid are even lower after various deductions and depreciation allowances. This will make Hongkong, in terms of taxation, more attractive than Singapore, which has just announced a reduction in its corporate income tax to 18%.

Competition for investments in the region is quite intense as other business areas record encouraging growth rates. Other than Singapore which posted a 17% growth (last year) in the financial services sector, another stiff competitor is Shanghai which hosts China’s biggest stock, futures, forex and interbank bond markets.