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Phl in fresh efforts to raise share of MSME to economic growth |
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Stakeholders will continue addressing key challenges to the growth of the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in a bid to increase the sector's economic contribution to 40 percent of gross value-added and create two million employment by 2016.
Rhodora M. Leaņo, director of the Department of Trade and Industry's Bureau of MSME Development, said this will make the Philippine MSME sector at par with the share of the MSME sector to GDP of other countries in the region.
Leaņo said the MSME Development Plan 2011-2016 listed these challenges as creating a conducive business environment, providing access to finance and access to market and improving productivity and efficiency (P&E).
To address these, she said the country will gear efforts towards bringing down the cost of doing business, particularly taxes and fees, to make these affordable to the MSMEs.
It will establish soft and hard infrastructure for MSME development. The institutional and support structures for the development of start-up and existing MSMEs will be also in placed.
To provide access to finance to the MSMEs, Leaņo said they will make sustainably available the financial products, services and support programs to MSMEs even to start-ups and those operating in the countryside.
By 2016 or the end of the Plan's implementation, she said the cost of obtaining MSMEs loans is reasonable and affordable. The requirements that MSMEs need to comply with to obtain loans are reasonable and manageable.
She further said access to markets will be also improved to make the MSMEs competitive in selling their products and services to existing and new markets here and abroad.
Leaņo noted the MSMEs will implement the value chain approach to benefit it. They will likewise utilize the information technology and intellectual property system to develop a sustainable market share and gain competitive advantage for their products and services.
She said government programs like the One Town, One Product Program (OTOP) to help MSMEs access local and global markets shall be coordinated.
Through the public-private partnership (PPP) scheme, Leaņo believes that the private sector can be an answer to the business development services required by the MSME sector.
To improve the productivity and efficiency of the local companies, she said, government programs and policies on productivity enhancement would be coordinated and be made effective and highly satisfactory.
Measures are also designed to help these companies become compliant with international quality standards, she added. -- Danielle Venz, PHILEXPORT News and Features
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