State Dining Room, Malacañan Palace
April 30, 2024

President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. presided over a sectoral meeting on the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) Development Plan 2023-2028 at the State Dining Room in Malacañan Palace.

Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Secretary Alfredo Pascual presented the fourth iteration of the Development Plan that focuses specifically on a progressive and smart approach to MSME development with the vision of an “innovative and resilient MSMEs in a digitally sustainable ecosystem, creating sufficient number of quality jobs and driving high levels of continued inclusive national growth towards global competitiveness.”

Discussion points included key initiatives and strategic shift towards new opportunities such as automating business regulatory processes and transactions, innovative financing methods, reskill and upskill management, expediting the integration of technology and innovation to propel the growth of the MSME sector, institutionalizing the One Town, One Product (OTOP) across all local government units (LGUs) to stimulate growth at the local level and penetrating the global market.

Cross-cutting strategies that include digitalization, public-private partnership (PPP), connectivity, business resilience, circular economy and green growth, customized support per enterprise level, collaboration between local and national government, and more women engaged in MSMEs formed part of the agenda.

President Marcos Jr. stressed the importance of MSMEs to the nation’s economic growth and encouraged concerned national government agencies to harness the MSMEs so they can progress further, as well as to assist nano businesses so these can grow to MSMEs in the long run. He also cited the significance of simplifying artificial intelligence (AI) that the MSMEs can use with ease and to their advantage.

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