Portal for Pinoy entrepreneurs opens global market prospects

Through a newly launched web portal, enterprising Filipinos now have an opportunity to advertise and market their products and services on the international market.

With their vision to expand the business potentials of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) not only in their home country but anywhere in the world with entrepreneurial Filipinos, 12 young Filipino couples now based in the Emirate introduced www.agilaglobal.net in Dubai recently.

The web portal came less than a year after the Arroyo administration incorporated entrepreneurship as the fourth pillar for the country’s Department of Foreign Affairs.

It was conceived by the Benitez couple of the Dubai-based Illustrado Holding Company, an initial venture of the Illustrado Marketing & Communications Incorporated.

By that time the portal has been conceived there were already over eight million overseas Filipino workers and Filipino migrants across the globe who became risk-taking businessmen and entrepreneurs operating in the country or their home-base abroad.

The portal was also one of the results of a random survey conducted by the company in January of this year which showed that among 500 respondents, 435 or 87 percent of the Filipinos in the UAE are operating their businesses back home.

This same survey also showed that the mindset of overseas Filipinos now a days has already changed, said Illustrado Managing Director Lalaine Chu- Benitez.

"I believe Filipinos are already enterprising and most have investments in the Philippines. Even with a small amount of money, we could do big business," she said.

"Why can we not soar and also be like the other successful businessmen in the world," added Illustrado business partner Sonny Silvestre who developed the portal with a Canada-based Filipino information technology expert.

Business partner and former Philippine-based banker Bullet Paredes Todino also said that the portal has so much potential given the certain critical mass of overseas Filipinos based all over the world.

So far, the portal has attracted 1,758 Filipino-owned firms from the Philippines, the United States, Canada and the United Arab Emirate and apart from the existing 1,674 subscribers, 9,000 companies are currently free listed.

Among the first set of industries that posted ads in the portal are from: electronics with 302 listings, construction with 258, apparel with 252, automotive with 216, agriculture with 12 listings, computer hardware with 142, advertising and media with 120; fashion and accessories with 72, arts and entertainment with 63 listings, education with 55, beauty and healthcare with 51, business services with 13 company listings and accounting with two. – Rhia de Pablo