MANILA – Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Assistant Secretary Jean Pacheco said Monday around 37,000 internet-based businesses have registered with the department from January to July this year.
During the National MSME Week e-forum, Pacheco said the number of registered online businesses surged from more than 1,600 online businesses that registered for the full year of 2019.
“That means to say that people are looking at ecommerce and that also means DTI needs to help a lot this particular MSMEs (micro, small, and medium enterprises),” she added.
When the government announced lockdown measures during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) in the country in March, business activities in online platforms surged as some business owners migrated their physical stores to online shops while those who lost their jobs also started their online business.
With the increasing number of online businesses, the Bureau of Internal Revenue issued a memorandum requiring online business owners to register their activities until July 31, 2020.
Those businesses with annual income of less than PHP250,000 are not required to pay taxes but are still encouraged to register their businesses.
In the same virtual forum, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian also urged the government to digitalize processes in business registration, particularly in local government units to ease doing business in the country.
Gatchalian added that through easing the processes of doing business in the country, more businesses will be encouraged to register their activities.
The DTI likewise promotes business registration even for small-scale businesses for them to easily access government’s support particularly during challenging times like the pandemic.
DTI Secretary Ramon Lopez on Monday said micro and small enterprises (MSEs) that tap the Covid-19 Assistance to Restart Enterprises (CARES) program reached 23,477 with aggregate borrowings amounting to PHP3.38 billion.
Of the number, 3,711 applications were approved with loans amounting to PHP253.5 million.
The CARES program lends PHP10,000 to PHP500,000 to MSEs that were affected by the Covid-19 pandemic for them to sustain their businesses and save jobs of their employees. (PNA)
