THE Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said it is set to ink an agreement with the Anti-Red Tape Authority (Arta) to cut down the process of doing business for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the local market and to prepare these businesses to become export-ready.
“We will be signing a [Memorandum of Agreement] MOA on that soon to make it easy for the local market, for access, to ease the business locally, and also to be able to get the papers ready, so that they will be ready for export,” DTI Acting Secretary Cristina Aldeguer-Roque told reporters on the sidelines of the agency’s first ever Beauty Fair held in Mandaluyong City on Wednesday.
“Also the MSMEs, aside from the big, of course, the big industries which we really support, we also have a push for the small and medium enterprises,” she noted.
“The small [enterprises], P3 million to P10 million assets. And then for the medium is P11 million to P100 million in assets. So these are people that are really ready to conquer the global arena,” said Aldeguer-Roque.
The Acting DTI Secretary said the MOA aims to reduce the steps in doing business for Filipino MSMEs.
“‘We will cut the steps. Let’s just say from six steps, it should be three steps. That’s also what I did in [Small Business Corporation] SB Corp. which is under the DTI. So before, they only want collateral but we have to realize MSMEs have no collateral,” said Aldeguer-Roque, adding that in making a loan with SB Corp., it used to take small merchants months, but now it had been cut down to 19 days.
In doing business in the Philippines, she explained the goals of DTI and Arta under this MOA, saying, “So locally, cut down the process and globally, come up with…of course when we’re abroad we have to follow the rules in that country but here in our country, we can also shorten the steps, which is what we discussed with [Arta] Secretary Perez.”
A few weeks ago, DTI-Export Marketing Bureau Director Bianca Pearl R. Sykimte told the BusinessMirror that Filipino MSME exporters are finding it difficult to compete in international markets due to problems in getting necessary certifications, among others.
Sykimte said these challenges were underscored in the Needs Assessment Survey that the export marketing division of DTI has been conducting to address the needs of stakeholders.
“Based on the results of the said survey, the following are the key challenges of exporters: Regulatory compliance;Production,particularly on costing and pricing and Certification,” Sykimte told the BusinessMirror in a Viber message earlier this month.
“These challenges have made it more difficult for MSME exporters to effectively compete in international markets,” she noted.
The Trade official said this includes cost of complying and getting the “necessary” certifications. Moreover, exporters raised “lengthy process and tedious documentation required.”
Sykimte said exporters both raised issues in securing local and international certifications. (Full story here: https://businessmirror.com.ph/2024/08/09/why-cant-msme-exports-compete-dti-explains/)
