The Department of Trade and Industry said Small Business Corp. granted P4 billion worth of loans to micro, small and medium enterprises in the first half of May 2021.
Trade Assistant Secretary Blesila Lantayona noted the increasing number of business owners who joined the reopening of the economy.
“SB Corp. has already approved loans to more than 28,610 applicants. Of the approved loans, P367 million have been availed by 2,432 applicants coming from Region 3- Central Luzon,” she said during the opening of Shell Marilao Station.
Shell Marilao opened the proprietary convenience store Select to house local Bulacan products through the Go Lokal! Program of the DTI.
Based on a survey conducted by DTI, businesses were slowly opening up from 19.8 percent in June 2020 to 56.4 percent in January to February 2021. The percentage of businesses which stopped operations also decreased. “This shows that more and more of our MSMEs are slowly opening up as we gradually loosen the quarantine restrictions,” Lantayona said.
Based on the same survey, in terms of assistance needed by MSMEs across all industries, a good number require financing assistance the most, with marketing assistance coming in second. The third most common response are those related to easing of policies and regulations on taxes; provision of discounts and incentives and assistance on rentals and utilities, among others.
The DTI implemented programs aimed at jumpstarting and reinvigorating the Philippine economy by stimulating consumption, revitalizing demand and empowering local industries to capture this demand, Lantayona said.
She said the DTI and SB Corp. would continue the microlending program because “there are still many takers, many are still in need of working capital loans to save their operations and jobs.”