This is the clarion call of the government in its bid to improve its global ranking in ease of doing business by streamlining, simplifying and integrating the application of business licenses from various agencies while saving time and costs for enterprises.

The goal is to provide all entrepreneurs in Brunei with a single government window that allows them to access and apply for the required licenses online with greater ease and convenience.

The Business Licensing System represents the second stage of a 4 stage e-government flagship project entitled Business Licensing System. Commonly referred to as BLS, this e-government project was initiated in the latter part of the 4th quarter of 2008 soon after the release of the World Bank and International Finance Corporation's Ease of Doing Business Report 2008 which included Brunei Darussalam for the first time.

While Brunei Darussalam's overall ranking was a respectable 78th out of 178 economies, its ranking on Starting A Business was 116th out of 178 economies. In an effort to improve the situation, Ministry of Industry and Primary Resources and Ministry of Home Affairs proposed the BLS as one of the initiatives under e-government.

"The first stage of the BLS was the consultancy project on "Business Process Re-Engineering (BPR) of the Business Licensing System". The primary objective of BPR was to improve the client service charter (TPOR) using two approaches. First is designing more efficient and lean application processing steps, and second is to introduce a total concurrent submission of application to various relevant agencies. This stage has been completed in June 2009.

The second stage of the BLS is the Phase 2A: single window with integrated forms for several agencies and interface to 3 information hub. The third stage of BLS, is the Phase 2B that involves the Integration of BLS to ready agencies back-end systems This stage is expected to be completed end of December 2011."