Move to identify active companies:

Re-registration of companies vital

Harshini Perera

The re-registration of companies under the new Act No. 7 of 2007 has become vital to identify the active companies in Sri Lanka. The company registration started in 1861 under the Joint Stock Companies Ordinance and until the implementation of the new Act in 2007, there were 66,496 registered companies with the Department of Registrar General of Companies.

Despite the large number of companies registered only 24,948 companies applied for re-registration, Registrar General of Companies, Department of Registrar General of Companies, D.K. Hettiarachchi told Daily News Business. He said that the Department published 21 advertisements in the newspapers and the latest advertisement was published on September 29, 2009.

Hence, the companies that have not re-registered yet were given a grace period of six months for the purpose and the Department expects to gather information on inactive companies and their names will be deleted from the list of registered companies if they unable to re-register during the grace period. Many companies fail to submit their annual and financial reports and remain passive.

The number of companies incorporated under Act No 7 of 2007 were 10,528 - from May 3, 2007 till September 30 this year. The number of companies registered during the period was 2,963 in 2007, 4,532 in 2008 and 33,033 in 2009.

The assets of the inactive company will be vested in the Government after the grace period is over. The grace period will end for the first published companies published on October 15 whereas the grace period for the companies in the latest advertisement will end on March 29 next year. The Department of Registrar General of Companies, publishes the names of these companies in newspapers - around 2, 000 companies in each advertisement, he said.

He said that the Department recorded a total income of Rs. 90,283,584 this year while its expenditure was Rs. 72,372,098. The Department of Registrar General Companies received many applications for registration from the Northern and the Eastern regions, especially from Jaffna.