Inter-Sectoral Committee on Empowering Entrepreneurs Established

First Meeting Convened at DOF, Regular Meetings, Consultations to Follow

Seeing the need for urgency in promoting inclusive growth, an inter-sectoral committee on micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) empowerment was established at the Department of Finance to focus on aligning policy to develop entrepreneurship and alleviate poverty in the Philippines.

Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima noted the need for a collaborative initiative in order to develop synergistic solutions to solve problems of poverty and unemployment.

"Bringing together the public and private sector here was crucial because the goal of Philippine development is one we all share. As the committee moves forward we will focus on aligning policy and finding ways for government policy to aid the operations of NGOs," Purisima said.

The meeting, convened by the Department of Finance, drew together a number of high-level actors to discuss solutions to increase business formation and opportunities at the Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprise (MSME) level. 

Present at the meeting in addition to Secretary Purisima were Gawad Kalinga founder Tony Meloto, Senator Benigno Paolo "Bam" Aquino, Trade and Industry Secretary Gregory Domingo, National Economic Development Authority Director General Arsenio Balisacan, Landbank President and Chief Executive Officer Gilda Pico, and CARD-MRI President and microfinance expert Aristotle Alip. Experts on business development and other topics will be invited to the committee's regular meetings in the future.

A theme of the meeting was the power of entrepreneurship to have a wide-ranging effect on inclusive growth. Purisima noted that the ability of the countryside to contribute to economic development is currently not being fully tapped.

"Agriculture employs roughly a third of our people, but contributes only twelve percent to our GDP. One of the solutions we discussed was how Landbank can leverage its network of physical branches to become resource centers for rural businesses. This will require future collaboration with DTI and other experts," Purisima said.

Purisima also stressed that a targeted approach to job creation will necessarily involve empowerment of the MSME sector. According to DTI statistics, MSMEs generated a total of 3,872,406 jobs in 2011 versus 2,473,336 for the large enterprises. This indicates that MSMEs contributed almost 61.0% of the total jobs generated by all types of business establishments that year. However, while MSMEs account for 60% of all exporters, they only contributed 25% of Philippine export revenue for 2011.
 

Cesar V. Purisima

Secretary

Department of Finance

Republic of the Philippines