The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is seeking a higher budget for 2024 to give it more room to promote exports and help develop micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), according to its secretary Alfredo Pascual.
Pascual’s statement concurred with the call of Sergio Ortiz-Luis, president of the Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc. (Philexport) for the government to double DTI’s budget, or give it at least another P5 billion, for the agency’s international and trade development functions.
For this year, the DTI’s budget stands at P6.3 billion.
According to Pascual, the DTI’s budget for 2023 has been significantly lower than 2022.
“For next year, we are asking for a higher budget… (to) what it should be if we want to promote exports and help MSMEs develop. This is an expenditure of government that will have a return to the economy,” Pascual said.
Sergio Ortiz-Luis in a separate interview told reporters the government should also ensure the development of exporters, especially in the SMEs by giving them access to financing in the proposed Magna Carta for SMEs.
“Government should stop giving tokens, Ortiz-Luis said, adding some of the interventions in the past were mere lip service.
Ortiz-Luis lamented the fact that the DTI, which is tasked to help in export development, has a very small budget for international trade fairs and foreign postings which handle export promotion.
“We have huge demand for trade but the budget is too small,” he said, adding the government is not investing enough on trade development.
Ortiz-Luis also urged legislators hearing the Magna Carta for SMEs to remove, if not reduce, the exemptions and alternative compliance on the requirement on banks to allot 10 percent of their loanable funds to SMEs.
He said those exemptions and alternative limit the availability of loans to SMEs.
