DAVAO CITY—More than 700 local upstarts and small businesses have conquered hesitance and jitters to enter the international and national exposition of products to contribute to multibillion-peso earning for the region, including negotiated sales.
The regional Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said the participation of the small businesses and upstarts were under its exports and investments development program.
“The agency has facilitated the participation of 762 MSMEs (micro, small, medium enterprises) in two international, seven national, eight regional, two provincial, and three municipal trade fairs,” the DTI Region 11 said.
This resulted to earnings of P13.48 million in cash sales, P23.22 million in booked sales and P3.2 billion in sales that were still under negotiation.
The DTI said that the successful participants were among the total of 26,108 MSMEs that it assisted last year. This was 104 percent of its target of 25,200 MSMEs for the year.
Its implementation of the Philippine Center for Entrepreneurship-Go Negosyo’s mentorship program and the Kapatid Mentor Micro Enterprise-Money Market Encounter (KMME-MME) Online, has also graduated 99 new small business last year. This brought to a total of 746 graduates regionwide since its implementation in 2016.
Alongside this was its livelihood seeding assistance through the Negosyo Serbisyo sa Barangay (NSB) and Pangkabuhayan sa Pagbangon at Ginhawa (PPG). The DTI said that its provincial offices successfully conducted their caravans in 269 barangays and provided 5,177 business and livelihood kits worth P8,000 to P10,000 each regionwide to selected MSMEs which were hardly hit by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The DTI regional and provincial offices here have likewise extended their assistance to 180 investors in the priority industries, it added. These include cacao, coffee, banana, coconut, rubber, information and communication technology (ICT), seaweed, rubber, wearables and homestyle and processed fruits and nuts.
Its provincial offices also have processed a total of 2,800 permits and licenses to increase the business activities in the provinces. These licenses include Sales Promotion permits, Certificate of Conditional Release and Certificate of Exemption for Import Commodity Clearance (ICC), Service and Repair certificates, Private Emission Testing Center (PETC) certificates, Land Transportation Office Endorsements, Truck Rebuilding Accreditation Certificates and Philippine Standard (PS) license.
This has earned a regional client satisfaction rating of 99 percent.
In the other areas of performance for the agency, it said it conducted workplace monitoring “as part of its commitment to protecting consumers and the general public against the spread of the Covid-19 virus. A total of 311 workplaces and 53 barbershops and salons were monitored for the year.”
It approved 160 Safety Seal Certification applications from the establishments under its jurisdiction.
The agency likewise resolved all consumer complaints through mediation and arbitration within the prescribed time.
“We would like to extend our sincerest gratitude to our public and private partners and collaborators who helped us in our journey this year. As we gear towards the full recovery of our economy, we will continue to innovate the way we do things as we continually deliver serbisyong higit pa sa inaasahan,” DTI Davao Region Regional Director Maria Belenda Q. Ambi said.