Noy pushes support for MSMEs

MANILA, Philippines - Every empowered person is a driver of growth, President Aquino said yesterday as he cited the need for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to penetrate regional and global markets.

“We want Filipino MSMEs to be able to participate more in that trade: we want to help them make the most of the vast market that regional economic integration provides. In fact, we want to achieve the same for all SMEs across APEC member-economies,” Aquino said in a speech at the APEC SME Summit in Makati City.

“If MSMEs can be strong drivers of inclusive growth in the Philippines, we believe that the same is true for all of APEC,” the President said.

According to Aquino, SMEs account for over 97 percent of enterprises, generate more than 50 percent of employment and account for up to 50 percent of GDP in the Asia Pacific. In the Philippines in 2013, Aquino said MSMEs comprised over 99 percent of all business enterprises and accounted for 63.7 percent of total employment.

“That is why the Philippines has chosen to make fostering SMEs’ participation in regional and global markets a priority of APEC 2015,” Aquino said.

The President said the SME Summit was an excellent way of demonstrating the vast potential of the sector.

“This is the basic principle that underscores the inclusive growth agenda of our administration, one we have sought to uphold in our hosting of APEC: that, whether we live in the Philippines, Korea, Papua New Guinea, Mexico, Russia or any other member-economy, each and every citizen has a paramount contribution to progress,” Aquino said.

“Each and every one has the capacity to bring about positive change. And, whether we lead governments or businesses, when we work hard to ensure that every person is empowered to realize that inherent capacity, we are creating drivers of growth,” he pointed out.

“We are enabling partners who will work with us towards realizing the stability, security and prosperity to which we all aspire,” the President said.

 Mother’s advocacy

In the Philippines, Aquino said growing SMEs became an advocacy of his late mother and former president Corazon after witnessing how empowered Filipinos were able to reclaim democracy.

After her presidency, the President said his mother pursued the empowerment of the people through different means, especially working in microfinance to enable poor Filipino entrepreneurs to control their own destinies and contribute to reducing poverty levels. – With Janvic Mateo