CITY OF SAN FERNANDO Thousands of micro, small and medium entrepreneurs (MSMEs) met on Wednesday 6th Shares Service Facilities SSF Stakeholders Regional Summit.
The event aims to look back at one of the Department of Trade and Industry’s prominent and successful flagship projects --- the SSF Program.
SSF is one of DTI’s strategies aimed at capacitating partner MSMEs known as cooperators through the provision of modern equipment and technological knowledge thru capacity- building activities.
The SSF program also provides a solution and addresses the scarcity of available modern machinery.
This is aimed at increasing the productivity of MSMEs and are made available to other users and beneficiaries.
SSF centers in the region are classified in a variety of industry clusters including bamboo, coffee, dairy, FabLab, fashion accessories, metal craft, organic fertilizer, processed food, and wearables among others.
From 2013 to January 2023, DTI Central Luzon established a total of 310 Shared Service Facilities across the region.
It has allocated a total of P170, 868,079.54 for the said program which benefited some 17, 307 existing and potential MSMEs, and created 60,388 jobs.
In the national level, as of Dec. 31, 2022, there are already 3,453 SSF projects established, 573,693 beneficiaries assisted and generated a total of 312,981 employment.
“The success of our SSF program is in its simplicity of concept. We help and assist our cooperators so that in turn, they may help a greater majority of our MSMEs and other beneficiaries,” said DTI-3 Director Leonila Baluyut.