To improve the business climate and its ranking in the next Doing Business report, Gabon recently announced the promulgation of a law on the simplification of the creation of Limited Liability Companies (Sarl) in the Gabonese Republic. This constitutes an incentive for the creation of commercial enterprises capable of generating wealth, jobs and a more active economic life.
Gabon did not get an honorable place in the latest Doing Business ranking, where it ranks 160th out of 190 countries. To meet the requirements prescribed by this World Bank report, the country is trying to implement its roadmap to improve the business climate. In this sense, the Ministry of Investment Promotion, public-private partnerships, responsible for improving the Business Climate announced, on April 30, the liberalization of the minimum share capital of Limited Liability Companies (Sarl) Gabon.
Despite the current health crisis, the government wanted to enact this law simplifying the procedures for setting up limited liability companies. “As part of the implementation of the Doing Business 2020-2021 reform roadmap adopted in the Interministerial Council on February 5, 2020, the President of the Republic has just promulgated on April 21, 2020 Law No. 028/2018 on modification of certain provisions of Law No. 13/2016 of September 05, 2016 relating to the simplification of the creation of limited liability companies in the Gabonese Republic ”, the Ministry of Investment Promotion announced.
“This liberalization of minimum capital is part of the dynamics of the reforms undertaken by the government to considerably improve the business environment in our country.” “These new provisions offer an advantage in promoting entrepreneurship for young people and women who often do not have the capacity to have a minimum capital to start a business,” the ministry explains.
This decision also has “an important impact in the formalization policy of the informal sector, because the costs of setting up businesses are sometimes a reason for keeping these entrepreneurs in this sector”. “In addition, given the many mostly informal activities that are developing in this context of health crisis linked to Covid-19, the promulgation of this law encourages them to formalize,” says the Ministry of Investment Promotion.
In the past to create a Sarl type business in Gabon, any creator was obliged to go before a notary for the drafting of the statutes. He was also required to have a minimum capital of 100,000 CFA francs. Now, the new law adopted in accordance with the provisions of the Uniform Act of the Organization for the Harmonization in Africa of Business Law (OHADA) relating to the rights of commercial companies brings two major innovations. There is no longer any minimum capital required for limited liability companies and the amount is freely set by the partners in the articles of association. The entry capital is divided into equal shares, the amount of which cannot be less than 5,000 CFA francs. The creator is no longer obliged to go before a notary to create a business of this type. The choice is left to the entrepreneur to go through a notary or to directly create his business from the counter and the investment of the National Agency for Promotion of Investments (ANPI-Gabon).