DTI expects over 1m business registrations this year

New business name registrations may exceed 1 million this year, according to the Department of Trade and Industry.

Data from the department showed that 432,962 business names were registered in the first quarter.

Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said many Filipinos adapted to the challenging times through entrepreneurship as evidenced by the 44.1-percent increase in registrations to 916,163 in 2020 from 637,580 in 2019.

“We are also seeing a complementing boom in e-commerce adoption. Since the start of this year, business registration of online businesses nationwide has grown to more than 9,000. Last year also saw a significant increase in the number of online sellers that registered their business names, climbing to more than 80,000 as compared to around 6,000 from 2018 to 2019,” he said at the virtual launch of the Youth Entrepreneurship Program.

Business name registration in Region 1 jumped from 31,749 in 2019 to 48,787 last year. For January to March this year, there were 23,465 newly-registered business names in the region.

Lopez encouraged young entrepreneurs to use technology to think and come up with new and relevant business models to address the needs of the people.

Under Republic Act No. 10679, or the Youth Entrepreneurship Act, the DTI committed to helping young people take up entrepreneurship.

“That’s why we created YEP, a focused program to support young Filipinos in becoming entrepreneurs. And with today’s launch of YEP in Region 1, we hope to ignite this entrepreneurial spirit in you all through the sharing of invited resource speakers noted for their business knowledge and experience in today’s seminars. Use technology, use your creativity, the way you know it, apply it to entrepreneurship and you can build back a better world,” Lopez said.

He said the DTI was willing and ready to support young entrepreneurs through 64 Negosyo Centers serving micro, small and medium enterprises in the region.