[NEWS] Cheap, practical trainings open for new, small entrepreneurs

(Courtesy of MindaNews news service. One good news for micro-small enterprises ---!}

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 7 July) – What can your P150 buy?

Lunch for two at a fastfood chain or watch a movie with a friend? With
P150 you can also attend a training on cinnamon and ensaymada-baking,
and maybe start your own business.

This and 11 other practical trainings for micro- and small enterprises
are open to the public at affordable registration fees, local business
leader, Sofronio Jucutan has announced here Friday. Jucutan, past
president of the Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCCI),
is the over-all head of the committee preparing for the Small and
Medium Enterprise Week, to be held here July 17-21.

Jucutan heads the public-private sector council for Davao City's Small
and Medium Enterprise Development (SMED), with the DCCCI, city
government, Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and other
organizations.

The trainings this year have basic courses on community and
self-managed enterprise, on preparing a business plan, and on
intellectual property rights for SMEs, as well as knowing the basic of
industrial and human relations.

There are also specialization trainings on packaging and marketing of
ethnic commodities, energy audit forum for SMEs, business prospects of
medical transcription, business registration forum, designing an
accounting system and filing, and income tax return, seminar on
emerging food safety issues, and the forum on information and
technology (IT) solutions for SMEs.
.

The one-session courses would be held in the function rooms of the
DTI, University of the Philippines in Mindanao, Ateneo de Davao
University, and in other venues.

SMED also offers monthly courses on other fields, Jucutan told
MindaNews, such as the 10-session "How to Start a Business"
entrepreneurial development course. The course is P1,500 per session.

The registration fees for the SME week trainings range from P100 to
P750 only per course.

The course offering would be expected to encounter some problems,
mainly attitudinal. Jucutan said many micro- and small entrepreneurs
"want it [a course] always free, but they really have to invest on
it".

"We have to train so that there will be more business and more
employment too," he said.

Since 2000, SMED has organized trainings during the annual Small and
Medium Enterprise Week, said Jacky Flores, SMED's aide for training
and consultancy. Flores said around 1,500 home and community-based
micro and small entrepreneurs have attended different courses.

Jucutan said that the trainings are intended to help SMEs which "have
difficulty competing with branded products". But the bigger problem
among these enterprises was access to capitalization, he added.

Meanwhile, Jucutan said that "there are already mechanisms taken to
aid SMEs gain more access to capital and lessen barriers, like
offering tax holidays" although they still have to face constraints in
access like "track record" in obtaining loans.

According to the National Statistics Office, of the 35,886
micro-small-medium enterprises in Southern Mindanao as of 2001, about
91.4 percent were micro enterprises, or those whose capital are below
P3 million. Small enterprises, with P3 million to P50 million
capitalization, made up 7.8 percent. Both the medium scale
enterprises, with P50 million to P100 million capitalization, and the
large companies barely made up one percent of the number of
enterprises in Southern Mindanao. (Walter I. Balane / MindaNews)