7,200 companies registered in first quarter of 2013

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The Patents and Companies Registration Agency (PACRA) has registered over 7,200 businesses countrywide during the first quarter of 2013.

 

The agency is meanwhile targeting to register about 60,000 companies by the end of the year.

 

PACRA Public Relations Officer (PRO) Vaida Bunda said the agency registered over 30, 000 businesses last year and hopes to double that number this year.

 

Ms. Bunda said PACRA will work on taking services closer to the people and conduct more awareness campaigns on the benefits of formalising a business.

 

And Ms. Bunda has told ZANIS in an interview in Lusaka today that currently, 740 companies await deregistration from the 1,000 that were initially earmarked for deregistration.

 

She said PACRA was currently gazetting the companies and will follow them up if they do not respond within three months.

 

She stated that the agency had written to the companies and given them notices in the newspapers.

 

Ms. Bunda further said it appeared that a number of companies were defunct since they had not filed their annual returns in a long time.

 

She was however quick to state that about 50 percent of business names came through within the 30 day period given in the notice and were maintained while the rest were deregistered.

 

And Ms. Bunda said PACRA was decentralising its operations and has since trained 14 officers and seven local authorities in North Western province.

 

She said this was in a bid to decentralise PACRA operations and ensure that the partnerships between the agency and local authorities were strengthened.

 

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