By HELEN ZULU –

THE Patents and Companies Registration Agency (PACRA) has registered about 17, 956 firms across the country this year.
PACRA public relations officer Vaida Bunda-Njobvu said the agency had registered about 17, 956 firms across the country in various sectors of the economy.
Ms Bunda-Njobvu said 11, 420 business names, 6, 495 local companies and 41 foreign companies were registered between January and August 2015.
She said this in an interview in Lusaka.
The agency was hopeful that the registration levels would increase significantly with the opening of provincial offices across the country.
“We from January to August 2015 registered about 17, 956 firms across the country this year.
“We hope that the registration levels will increase significantly with the opening of the provincial offices in almost all the provinces in the country,” she said.
Ms Bunda-Njobvu said the presence of PACRA countrywide had helped ease and reduce the cost of conducting business as people did not have to travel long distances to access registration services.
Ms Bunda-Njobvu said due to good initiatives that the Agency had come up with last year, it had received overwhelming response from companies in terms of filling in their annual returns.
Ms Bunda-Njobvu, however, called upon businesses be providing valid contact details giving working mobile numbers and email addresses to the agency so that they could be notified whenever the dates for filing of annual returns are due.
“However, we are still intensifying efforts to ensure that more registered businesses comply with the requirement to file annual returns. We write emails and messages to remind businesses to file annual returns on time,” she said.