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Thursday, January 08, 2004
Bill to give Smed body more funds, effectivity
By Cherry T. Lim
A BILL is now pending in Congress that will give the National Small and Medium Enterprises Development (Smed) Council more funding as well as more teeth in its drive to propel small and medium enterprises to greater competitiveness.
“It’s going to give more effectivity to the council,” said Joyce Natalie Yang, Visayas representative of the Smed Council.
The bill was filed in the Senate by Sen. Robert Jaworski, and a counterpart bill has been filed by another lawmaker in the House of Representatives.
Yang told Sun.Star the bill would “mandate a separate fund for the council.”
At present, the council gets its funding from the budget of the Bureau of Small and Medium Business Development, a branch of the Department of Trade and Industry.
According to the Barangay Micro Business Enterprises (BMBE) law, which was passed in November 2002, the council is also supposed to get financial help from a P3-billion endowment fund from the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor).
The Smed Council would not be touching the entire P3 billion principal, but just using the income from the investments, Yang said.
The law states that the Smed Council can use this amount for general purposes, including its operations. However, the council has not received anything from Pagcor.
Coordination
The bill will also suggest changes in the composition of the council, like the inclusion of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG).
The inclusion of the DILG will ensure better coordination among the government agencies and institutions tasked to implement the BMBE law.
The law provides incentives to barangay micro business enterprises, whose assets do not exceed P3 million. The incentives include exemption from taxes and from coverage of the minimum wage law.
Local government units are also encouraged to reduce the amount of local taxes, fees and charges imposed on BMBEs, or to exempt these enterprises from paying these.
Various government financial institutions have also been mandated to set up special credit windows for these small micro businesses.
To avail themselves of these incentives, BMBEs must register with the Office of the
Treasurer of their respective cities or municipalities.
As of Dec. 2, 2003, a total of 596 firms had registered nationwide, of which the bulk came from the National Capital Region, with 194 firms, and Central Luzon, with 102 registrants.
Central Visayas, which groups Cebu, Bohol, Negros Oriental and Siquijor, had 88 registered firms.
A status report of the BMBE law revealed that so far only 250 out of the 1,610 cities and municipalities in the country were implementing the law.
Of the 16 regions in the country, only Western Visayas, Northern Mindanao and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao had no registrants.
Yang earlier expressed the hope that local governments would understand the significance of the BMBE law and support it wholeheartedly by making it easy for interested parties to register.
Unfortunately, “what they (local governments) see is that it won’t give them income. What they don’t see is that it will also stimulate the economy in the area,” she said.
(January 8, 2004 issue)
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