Cebuano exporters anticipate share from MSME state fund

CEBU, Philippines - Cebuano exporters are hoping to get a share of the government’s financial support to help the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), as market recovery is on its way up.

PhilExport-Cebu advocacy officer Jun Abines said that exporters expect to gain assistance from different government-owned financial institutions, following the pronouncement made by Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) secretary Peter Favila that financial support is readily available for the MSME exporters.

Earlier, Favila announced that the SME Unified Lending Opportunities for National Growth or SULONG program has released P306 billion in technical assistance to the MSMEs, a bulk of which went to export-oriented firms.

“The SULONG is a very good program to boost the technical expertise of exporters. We are hoping that more of our local exporters and manufacturers will benefit from this, considering that Cebu’s economy is driven mainly by manufacturing and exporting,” said Abines.

Abines added that the grant of technical assistance is expected to intensify and encourage the MSMEs to diversify, innovate, and update its technological capacities.

Also, DTI has also increased its efforts geared towards promoting investments at the local level.

“Over 200 local government units (LGUs) nationwide have already streamlined their business registration processes which resulted in 17-percent increase in registration and 36-percent rise in tax collections,” Favila said.

According to Abines this development will push more new investments in the country, as the streamlining efforts will reduce red tape and provide transparency.

DTI estimated that of the total 783,065 registered business enterprises operating in the country, around 99.7 percent or 780,469 are MSMEs and the remaining 0.3 percent (2,596) are large firms.

This year, the Cebu export industry, primarily the home furnishing and fashion accessories sectors are growing at a rate of 10 percent to 15 percent in terms of order volumes, PhilExport-Cebu reported.

Positive performance of home decors, and fashion accessories is a good indication that the buying interest abroad is starting to pick-up.

In the second quarter of this year, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI-7) regional office here gathered the key players in the export sector on a two-day crisis management planning, and to help exporters “stay above water”.

DTI-7 had identified these three sectors in the export industry that have been hardly hit by the market demand slowdown.— Ehda M. Dagooc