PUERTO PRINCESA CITY, Palawan -- Micro, small and medium enterprises’ (MSMEs) non-food and food products in Palawan can be competitive if their designs and packaging will improve, a Philippine Trade Training Center (PTTC) expert said here Thursday.
Gerald David, a project officer of the PTTC, said this in a media conference by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the BPI Foundation at a hotel in the city early Thursday afternoon.
“I had gone around Palawan, and in the design of products, I could say that it’s still weak here. This is the reason why we brought our resource persons here to mentor our MSME entrepreneurs on what are current designs that may work on their products,” said David.
He said MSME entrepreneurs can be trained to consider local materials in designing their products because Palawan has a lot of them to explore to be competitive in the domestic and export markets.
The MSME entrepreneurs in the province should follow “packaging and labeling standards” to be able to compete in the national and global markets, he added.
“There’s a lot to improve too, in terms of packaging and labeling standards. For example, in our critiquing of one product earlier, there is information that is not there like net weight and nutritional facts. This is what we want to let them know about,” he said.
In handicraft and furniture products, the designs of makers in the province are outdated and traditional when there are already new concepts to use, he said.
“We cannot showcase them in other countries because the designs are still somewhat old-style, or out-of-date, compared to other areas. There are already mixed elements of designing to teach them that is why our resource persons are here,” he added.
The DTI and the BPI Foundation are together in Puerto Princesa in the “Show Me Teach Me MSE” capacity training seminar for around 120 Palaweños engaged in micro, small and medium enterprises.
Tessa Calalang, the program manager of the BPI Foundation, said the program is focused on empowering entrepreneurs by upgrading their capacity skills.
“The program ‘Show Me Teach Me MSE’ is an empowering initiative for our entrepreneurs. This is actually a capacity building program whereby we assist micro-small enterprises to scale up opportunities for them,” she said.
Calalang added that BPI’s goal in helping the entrepreneurs of Palawan is in support of the government’s thrust for inclusive growth.
DTI-Palawan Provincial Director Rosenda Fortunado said the two-day capacity building initiative will provide training on bookkeeping, and product and packaging design development.
“We have participants from as far as Bataraza participating here, and each municipality has at least 5-10 attendees, and some of them are first-timers. Right now, we’re teaching them skills on simple bookkeeping,” she said. (PNA)
Palawan file photo
