(RPG-019) “ASSISTING RURAL AND URBAN BUSINESSES”

Considering the large volume of goods that the Philippines is now importing, can you imagine what it could do for local business and industry if some if not most of the imports could be substituted with local products? Believe it or not, it is not only the issue of quality that is causing local buyers to depend more on imports; it is also the lack of information about the local alternatives that are available.

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When I was Director of the UNDP Transfer of Knowledge through Expatriate Nationals (TOKTEN) Program, I sent a market intelligence expert to Davao City, to study the problems and potentials of the local cut flower industry there. To my surprise, the expert told me during his debriefing that Mindanao as a whole could supply practically the same quality and variety of cut flowers that Amsterdam and Singapore are supplying to the five star hotels of Metro Manila, except for the fact that these hotels hardly know that they do have local alternatives.

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Mr. Alan Hicks, an American expatriate here in Metro Manila tells me that the large volume of first class American pork that the five star hotels are importing now could also be produced locally, with exactly the same quality. The secret is in the feeds he says, because there is not much difference in the air and sunshine of America and the Philippines. Can you imagine how much is the value of this import substitution potential that is going to waste?

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Several participants of the Sama-Kabuhayan and Agro Amigo programs of the Inter-Charity Network (ICN) are now ready to graduate into becoming micro-entrepreneurs. I am now organizing them to become the core group of the Association of Philippine Rural and Urban Businesses (APRUB). This new group will mobilize and assist other micro-entrepreneurs so that they could jointly market their products locally and globally.

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As initial projects, APRUB has tied up with a Hong Kong company to open a trading center in a Pasay City shopping center. It has also tied up with an American company to operate an e-commerce portal in the web, a la eBay.