Novelties of the National Business Center 

Latest changes of the legislation regarding setting up and functioning of the National Business Center, aiming to improve services to citizens and businesses

In the framework of the reform for the improvement of the services provided to the citizens and businesses, on 26.11.2015, the Albanian Parliament passed the law no. 131/2015, dated 26.11.2015 “On the National Business Center” (the “New Law”). This law, amended respectively law 9723/2007 “On the National Registration Center”, and law 10081/2009 “On licenses, authorizations and permits in the Republic of Albania”.

The New Law creates the National Business Center (“NBC”), an institution of the public administration headquartered in Tirana, reporting to the minister in charge of trade. From the organizational and operative point of view, NBC will provide services to the public in the central office in Tirana, as well as through local offices in the various established local government units and chambers of commerce and industry in the country.

On the 90^th day after the entry into force of the New Law, the National Registration Center and the National Licensing Center shall be considered dissolved and NBC will inherit all the rights and obligations of these two institutions and will carry out their competences, including without being limited to:

•   holding and administering the commercial register and national register on licenses, authorizations and permits;
•   handling of licenses, authorizations and permits procedures and related activities;
•   performing of registrations of business entities, issuance of certificates, registration excerpts, records, and publishing of the relevant business entities data with the commercial register, etc.

The documents issued by the National Registration Center and the National Licensing Center, before their dissolution, remain valid and business entities holding such documents are not required to perform any additional actions.

According to the provisions of the New Law, NBC will be operative within 28.03.2016.

With such regard, on 09.03.2016 the Council of Ministers approved Decision no.179 for the approval of the statute of the NBC that abrogated the respective statutes of National Registration Center and National Licensing Center.

The statute reasserts the provisions of the above-mentioned law and defines the internal structure of the NBC, the benefits and status of its employees and relations with other institutions.

The statute, same as the New Law, provides that the aim of the creation of NBC is to facilitate procedures for the registration and licensing of businesses. In such regard, it will offer various services online.

To guarantee the facilitation of procedures of registration of business and licenses /permissions /authorizations the NBC will effectuate the connection and exchange of data with various institutions and electronic data bases of public institutions.  The decision on the approval of NBC statute shall enter in force as of the publication date in the official gazette i.e. 15.03.2016.