Liberia has launched its first ever business registry, with the help of the Investment Climate Facility for Africa. The project’s main objective is to make it easier to establish a business in the country.

As it stands there are 12 procedures required to register a business in the country, which the centre aims to reduce to five. It also takes about 60 days to complete these processes and costs $819, something the centre also hopes to cut to 20 days and $119.

Liberian minister of commerce and industry Miata Beyslaw said: “The government of Liberia believes that enterprise formalisation will create a catalytic effect to private sector development, job creation and poverty alleviation.”

The country’s president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, is scheduled to appear in London on June 14 for an investment conference, where she is expected to promote the new registry.