PBBM urges ASEAN to provide support to nano businesses

President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on Wednesday urged the member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to provide support to nano businesses, noting that this sector could contribute to the region’s overall economic growth and narrow the development gap.

In his intervention during the ASEAN Leaders’ Interface with Representatives of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations-Business Advisory Council (ASEAN-BAC), Marcos said these nano businesses are the various “solopreneurs” and home-based busi- nesses, such as make-up artists, vulcanizers, independent dispatch riders, vendors, repairers and market women and men in the various open markets.

He pointed out that these nano businesses have been impacting lives of people in the region, but they are somehow ignored because of their status as an informal and still unrecognized business category.

He also argued that nano businesses are just as viable as micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).

“They play a very important but often unrecognized role all across our countries. But by classification, they often do not meet the MSME micro-business criteria, which is the category for the smallest businesses.

They are largely unaccounted for, but these informal business settings constitute a large portion of all our economies,” Marcos told the ASEAN-BAC gathering.

ASEAN Business Advisory Council (ASEAN-BAC) Chair Mohammad Arsjad Rasjid Prabu Mangkuningrat, who also chairs the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KADIN), backed Marcos’ call to recognize and support nano businesses.

During the Laging Handa public briefing Wednesday, ECOP president Sergio Ortiz-Luis said only 16 percent of the employed Filipinos will only benefit from the proposed wage hike, which is pending in the Senate.

“If we will have the legislated wage increase, only 16 percent of the 50 million workers will benefit. And who are those 84 percent? These are the farmers, fisherfolk, market vendors, those in the small industries, tricycle drivers, jeepney drivers —they do not have employers. If you will hike the wages, who will increase the wages of the 84 percent?” Ortiz-Luis said in Filipino.

He added wage hikes could trigger higher prices of commodities, which those in the informal sector would not afford.

“Does the government have other programs for the 84 percent who will not have wage increase? If the government will pay for the PHP150 for the 42 million workers, that’s in trillion (pesos), and our budget could not afford that,” he said.

Ortiz-Luis said even without the legislated wage increase, employers, especially large companies, have been generous in giving benefits to their workers. (PNA)