Finance Minister Paula Cox yesterday defended new regulations which require retailers to file for a special licence if they wish to open for business on Sundays.

Speaking to the Chamber of Commerce at an annual post-Budget breakfast meeting yesterday, Ms Cox ? who delivered her second Budget in the House of Assembly on Friday ? outlined Government?s plans for how it will spend the $750 million in expected revenue for the coming financial year.

Businesses have generally been happy with what the Budget held for them as there were no real increases in taxes, save for having to share with employees, from August, an additional pay out of 4.75 percent more in social insurance contributions as a result of a 3.5 percent planned increase in seniors? pensions.

Indeed, small- to mid-size businesses are better off in this year?s Budget after a tiered payroll tax system was announced that will see some companies taxed at a lower rate.

Retail businesses were also happy to learn that Sunday openings will become a reality, but Ms Cox said the law was always going to require companies to first create a ?paper trail?.

Ms Cox announced on Friday that an amendment to the Public Holidays Act 1947 would be made to allow all retail stores to open between 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. on public holidays ? which includes Sundays ? other than on Christmas and Good Friday.

Although being promised permission to open for a limited period on Sundays, retailers cannot take advantage of the new policy until they have paid for and received a licence. Specifically, retailers will have to make an application for the licence to the Finance Ministry through the Registrar of Companies. Retailers had hoped for the measure without any red tape.

Permission for Sunday openings ? coming on the heels of several years of lobbying for this concession by the Chamber ? is at least something for a sector that last year saw its hopes dashed for similar concessions to those already in place for restaurants and hotels allowing tax breaks when upgrades are made.

At the time, Ms Cox said retailers had largely recovered from a decline in business from 2001 and did not need the break.

But signs of trouble for the sector surfaced when two of the Island?s best-known retailers ? citing competitive pressures ?merged into one. Last year Trimingham Brothers Limited took over its next door neighbour H.A. & E. Smith?s. More recently another flagship retailer ? A.S. Cooper and Sons ? has moved the departments once housed in its main department store into multiple locations across Hamilton in order to begin a two-year redevelopment of its well-known Front Street headquarters into a part-retail, part commercial real estate venture.

The move to allow Sunday opening comes after retailers reported stiff trade when they were given special permission to open seven days a week during the pre-Christmas shopping period.

Grocery stores were given the green light to open on Sundays some years ago, with the additional shopping day proving a boon.

?For many grocery stores, Sunday is now the busiest shopping day of the week,? Ms Cox pointed out on Friday.

Yesterday she reiterated to Chamber members that the ?relaxation? of Sunday trading rules would have to strike a balance between giving retailers greater flexibility while being fair to employees.

At the breakfast meeting, Chamber of Commerce president Charles Gosling asked the Minister about the decision to put an additional fee and licence requirement on retailers for Sunday openings, saying the sector had been looking for unrestricted permission.

?There is still protocol. Even though you have the legislation [which is expected to be introduced to the House shortly for the actuality of Sunday openings, you will still have to make application and payment of fees...I don?t think that is something that is unusual and certainly there will be opportunity once we see the legislation to see how it will work,? Ms Cox said.

She said at the ?macro level? the change in the law would enable the additional opening hours, but ?there still has to be the paperwork to facilitate that and also to expedite it?.

Ms Cox added that the Finance Ministry had a good track record of being ?user-friendly? when it came to accommodating the needs of clientele but there would continue to be certain paperwork requirements that had to be met.