By Annabel Consuelo Petinglay/Philippine News Agency
SAN JOSE DE BUENAVISTA, Antique — The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is going to bring Negosyo Center (NC) services down to Antique’s barangays starting May.
Cor Mariez E. Sandig, NC Small and Medium Enterprises Development (SMED) Unit Business Councilor, said in an interview Thursday that they are going to conduct entrepreneurship seminars among micro, small and medium entrepreneurs (MSMEs) right in barangays to increase their knowledge on how to manage their businesses.
“We are going to the barangays of the fourth to fifth class municipalities,” Sandig said.
She said they are going to conduct entrepreneurial seminars with such topics as financial literacy and simple bookkeeping in the barangays of fourth to fifth class municipalities. These are Belison, Libertad, Anini-y, Barbaza, Laua-an, Pandan, Sebaste, Tibiao, Tobias Fornier, and Valderrama.
Sandig further said that the NC staff in these municipalities, who had also been trained to conduct these seminars, will also assist during their scheduled activities on May 22 in Barangay Malabor, Tibiao; May 23 in Barangay Pequeño, Anini-y; May 27 in Barangay Esparar, Barbaza; and on May 30 in Barangay Poblacion, Belison.
“We will be conducting the entrepreneurship seminars to the 47 other barangays of fourth to fifth class municipalities until November this year,” she said.
It is also noteworthy that Antique is the first province in Western Visayas to establish NCs in all its 18 municipalities in 2018 as prescribed by Republic Act 10644, to assist MSMEs, especially the startups.
Meanwhile, Sandig said that aside from the entrepreneurship seminars, they will also assist MSMEs on how to access the microfinancing initiative of Presidert Rodrigo Duterte, which is the Pondo sa Pagbabago at Pag-asenso (P3).
Jessca Marie A. Benedicto, who is in charge of the P3 being implemented by DTI-Antique with its financing arm the Small Business Corp., said in a previous interview that PHP6 million has been allocated for Antique this year.
The micro entrepreneur could then initially borrow through the P3 a minimum amount of PHP5,000 to a maximum of PHP20,000 with monthly interest rate of only 2.5 percent, smaller compared to that of other lending institutions.
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