UP Los Baños, CCP ink agreement to help SMEs

The University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) and the Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (CCP) signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) last Friday to make support services more accessible to small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

The MOA gave a boost to the partnership between the two entities to bring information and technical services to SMEs wanting to enter other markets in the Asia-Pacific region.

Filipino entrepreneurs, who want to gain a foothold on the international market, can now make inquiries with the APEC Center for Technology Exchange and Training for Small and Medium Enterprises (ACTETSME) not only at its UPLB office, but also through its CCP extension office.

Former President Fidel Ramos, regarded as one of the "godfathers" of ACTETSME, was present in the inauguration of the CCP extension office the other day.

Ramos proposed the creation of the center during the first Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in 1993. Three years later, the center was launched at the UPLB.

APEC groups Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong, China, Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, the United States, and Vietnam.

Ramos said the CCP extension office "is an outreach initiative that would become the focal point for delivering ACTETSME’s support services to SMEs throughout the entire Philippines."

Under the agreement, ACTETSME will make its portal accessible from the CCP Business Center in Manila.

Ramos said the center would help budding entrepreneurs who fear that the borderless international trade would eat them up.

Assuaging their apprehensions, he said the center will provide them with the facilities and resources to address their technical, managerial and information needs to make them competitive in the open market.

Besides inaugurating the CCP extension office, Ramos also inducted the new set of CCP officers — chairman Exequiel Garcia, vice chairman Rose Teodoro, president Melito Salazar Jr., executive vice president Benigno Ricaforte, vice president Ceferino Benedicto, and executive director Emmanuel Almonte. Outgoing CCP president Francis Chua was recognized as president emeritus.

Ricaforte said the 103-year-old CCP wants to provide a more accessible and convenient office that can attend to inquiries.

By taking advantage of the APEC Center’s services, he said Filipino entrepreneurs can get the correct information and make the right connections before venturing into the APEC market.

Ricaforte said Ramos decided to set up the APEC Center in Los Baños, Laguna because at that time, the Calabarzon area (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon) was a burgeoning industrial hub.

But now, he said there is a need to heighten the interest of business groups or individual entrepreneurs based in Metro Manila and elsewhere in the country.

"The CCP is willing to help. We have set up a training center and we would invite SME businessmen and schedule seminars," he said, adding that they would invite consultants and retired business executives to serve as resource persons.

The CCP-SME Counseling Office, equipped with six computers, is located at the second floor of the CCP building. Filipino entrepreneurs can post questions on the websites http://www.actetsme.org and http://www.actetsme.org.ph.

Ricaforte said they also recently tied up with the AMA Computer School, which would send their students for on-the-job training.

Dr. Salvador Catelo, dean of the UPLB-College of Economics and Management, said their website has been making 500 hits a day.