BAGUIO CITY – The three-day Productivity fair featuring the innovative and creative products of hundreds of micro, small, and medium enterprises in the different parts of the city came to a close on December 16, 2018.
Councilor Leandro B. Yangot, Jr., chairman of the City Council Committee on Market, Trade, Commerce and Agriculture, said that the fair is part of the initiative of the local government and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to provide the needed exposure of the quality products of MSMEs in the city for them to gain in the marketing and promotion of their products.
Further, the fair is an offshoot of the recent conduct of the first-ever Baguio MSME Summit that was spearheaded by Yangot’s committee which was geared at generating inputs from the MSMEs on how the local government could help in advancing the interest of MSMEs operating in the different barangays.
The theme of the MSME Summit was ‘Fostering Innovation and Nurturing Creative Skills.
Yangot earlier urged residents and visitors alike to visit the productivity fair at the Igorot Garden for them to have a chance to purchase quality products from local MSMEs and for them to help in promoting the quality products of local entrepreneurs who continue to strive for excellence in their fields of expertise, particularly in the growth of the local entrepreneurship.
Yangot extended the local government’s gratitude to the DTI-CAR for its unrelenting and uncompromising support to the sustainable growth and development of the MSME sector because more than 90 percent of the businesses that are operational in the city are MSMEs.
The local legislator assured the MSMEs in the city that the local government will continue extending the appropriate support to the MSMEs so that there will be a sustainable advancement in the said sector being vibrant in the generation of more jobs for qualified residents and provide additional sources of livelihood for the people involved in the various established industries.
Yangot claimed that his committee will study the possibility of conducting the annual MSME summit for local entrepreneurs to be updated on the latest trends in branding of their products, marketing and advertising strategies, proper packaging techniques among other programs that will continue elevating the state of the MSMEs to greater heights.
For the past several years, the local government, the DTI-CAR, and other stakeholders had been closely working together to find ways and means on how to aggressively promote the MSME sector of the city and to convince more people to be involved in local entrepreneurship that will provide them with added source of income and help in generating jobs for the increasing number of jobless individuals from the different barangays of the city.
He asserted the need of the local government and concerned government agencies to bring the MSMEs to establish linkages with micro-financing institutions that will help them continue introducing the needed innovations to their products and for them to also acquire the needed creative skills that will work for the advancement of their businesses, especially of the growing competition among those having similar businesses.
By Dexter A. See
