Special credit planned for investors in natural ingredients sector

The government is firming up plans to provide special credit facilities for entrepreneurs in the flourishing natural ingredients industry as part of a resolute 10-year roadmap aimed at making the Philippines an influential player in the global bioenterprise business.

Alicia Ilaga, director of the Department of Agriculture (DA) Biotech Program, disclosed in the recent unveiling of the 2006-2016 Philippine Agriculture and Fisheries Biotech Roadmap that small and medium enterprises requiring start-up funds will have greater access to credit or financial instruments.

"We are looking at various low-interest loans that could be available immediately so that these entrepreneurs can readily commercialize their products," said Ilaga.

She said the DA, aside from scouting for offshore funds, will also be tapping government financial institutions such as the Land Bank of the Philippines and the Development Bank of the Philippines.

Under the biotech roadmap, Ilaga said the DA will initially focus on two major activities: targeting the world market for natural ingredients and creating a natural ingredient cluster of industries, and building up the competitiveness of traditional Philippine agri-fishery products.

"The country’s substantial and sufficient resources give the Philippines the opportunity to satisfy the growing demands for natural ingredients in the world market," she said.

In the next 10 years, the DA will develop and promote a cluster of new industries to be composed of the manufacturing and the farming sectors for the production of plants yielding medicinal, cosmetic or food ingredients; and agri-bio inputs with subsectors on organic fertilizers, biofertilizers and biopesticides.

But since there are only a handful of entrepreneurs with adequate capital to go full steam in commercializing biotech projects, Ilaga said the government will have to intervene by facilitating access to badly-needed funds.