One-Stop Shopping in Portugal
This lesson is part of the Doing Business series, written by “star reformers.” In 2005, it took 11 procedures and 78 days to start a business in Portugal, making it slower than the Democratic Republic of Congo. As soon as new Prime Minister Jose Socrates took office in March of 2005, the planning for reform began, and in four months Empresa Na Hora, the Portuguese one-stop shop for creating a company, was fully operational. Portugal is now one of the easiest countries to start a business in, taking only seven procedures, and the total cost has decreased to 3.4 percent of the GNI. As head of Office of Public Services Reform, Maria Manuel Leitão Marques was responsible for bringing together the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Economy, and the Ministry of Labour and Social Security—all involved in the process of starting a business—to make this change a reality.
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