Jose Ma. “Joey” Concepcion III said that “nano enterprises,” which are smaller than micro establishments, play a big part of the domestic economy as they are rapidly mushrooming because of digitalization.
At the Laging Handa, Public Briefing, the chairman of Asean Business Advisory Council (ABAC) Philippines said that nano enterprises have become another category below the micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs). “We should now embrace them as part of MSMEs, and I totally agree with that,” he said noting that these new businesses are sometimes not included as part of MSMEs.
Examples of nano enterprises include a self-employed tech person or a chef cooking food for delivery, new social media influencers, original content creators, who at the same time own their businesses.
President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. during his meeting with the Asean Business Advisory Council (ABAC) during the ASEAN Leaders’ Summit in Labuan, Indonesia also highlighted the nano entrepreneurs as another business category. The ASEAN economy is composed of 97-99 percent MSMEs.
Nano businesses are rapidly sprouting with good opportunities for Filipinos as they ride on and are empowered by electronic platforms.
On the ASEAN Creative group, he said that the Philippines can learn from the progress of digitalization in other ASEAN countries like Singapore which has many e-platforms that are accelerating the growth of techpreneurs in the region.
The Go Negosyo Founder cited that digitalization has encouraged Filipino creatives and making the domestic economy more inclusive. He further cited these e-platforms for their help in onboarding the nano enterprises using digital payments with many markets, including the Philippines, now accepting e-wallet payments.
But the biggest potential for Filipinos who want to go into business is tourism, he said. “This we are pushing hard,” as he noted that other ASEAN countries are benefiting more from tourism despite the fact that none of their beaches can come close to that of the Philippines’ and the tested brand of hospitality of Filipinos.
He urged Filipinos to promote the Philippines more using digital media as there have been a glut of foreign tourists.
“We just have to expand our efforts to make it tourist-friendly,” he said citing the long queues at the Immigration counters at the airport. He pointed out that the airport is the first encounter of foreign tourists in the country, “So let’s make their first experience not a bad experience, so our airports are critical.”
Other ASEAN countries are also willing to lend their support to improve Philippine agriculture, which is being bogged down by lack of water sources and smaller land parcels following the distribution of large tracks of agriculture lands as mandated under the Agrarian Reform Law.
With that, he proposed the creation of Agri Business as one of the pocket groups in ASEAN to promote and develop the agriculture sector and help farmers become entrepreneurs themselves. “We’re trying to build a mentorship program where agriculture experts can help the Philippines,” he said.
He said the Private Sector Advisory Council (PSAC) is going to raise this collaboration with other brother ASEAN countries when they meet with the President on Thursday, May 18.