Philexport moves to expand export base

Exporters are out to expand to the rural areas the base of the country’s export sector.

In an unprecedented move, the Philippine Exporters Confederation, Inc. (Philexport) is set to forge on May 21 tie-ups with three separate entities on which it will anchor its new offensive in the development of small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

The signing will coincide with the first na-tional membership meeting of the federation.

One agreement will cover expansion of a lending program for exporters that demands no collateral in partnership with the Founda-tion for Filipino Entrepreneurship, Inc. (FFEI).

The program was successfully pioneered in Metro Manila with the Land Bank and the Foreign Buyers Association of the Philippines (FOBAP) since 1999. With the tie-up and with counterpart funds from government financial institutions, the program is planned to be expanded to other parts of Luzon and regional centers with large constituencies of exporters.

A second agreement is meant to further widen the reach of Philexport in discovering new export entrepreneurs in the countryside under its version of the government’s KALAHI program. It will sign an agreement with the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) for the latter to accredit Philexport’s community-based trainors under the program.

The agreement is hoped to propagate a training system that leads to partnership between big exporters and small entrepreneurs and their workers in the production of larger volumes of export products based on actual orders from abroad.

A third agreement that will be signed by Philexport president Sergio R. Ortiz-Luis, Jr. and Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas will be Philexport’s participation in Kabuhayan, Kabahayan and Kahusayan program of DOLE.

This will commit members of the organi-zation to give top priority to hiring young jobless workers and out-of-school youths above 18 years old by using the computerized national manpower registry system and the public employment service offices of the Department of Labor and Employment in the provinces.

In sum, the export industry is committing its members in addressing the acute problem of credit access in the ranks of small enter-prises, the need to build a strong entrepre-neurial class and the need to solve the nation’s acute unemployment problem. – Abe P. Belena, Philexport News and Features