The ranks of the self-employed, single proprietors, and businesses smaller than micro collectively known as nano entrepreneurs are increasingly becoming important in the economies of Asean and in the Philippines post-pandemic.
Joey Concepcion, Asean Business Advisory Council (Asean BAC) chair for the Philippines, expressed his support to the government’s call to the Asean member- states to support nano businesses which are often forgotten.
“We should now embrace Nano entrepreneurs as part of the micro, small and medium enterprises,” said Concepcion.
Nano businesses are described as solopreneurs operating out of their homes or on foot, offering services such as home repair or working as manicuristas, or itinerant services like repairing shoes or selling snacks. Personal chefs, tech people, influencers and content creators can be described as nano businesses.
At the Asean Leaders’ Interface with representatives of the Asean-BAC last week, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said nano businesses, which can be described as an informal and still unrecognized business category, have been impacting lives of people in the region everyday but somehow ignored.
“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 gathering.
