www.smedsep.ph What's New as of as of 30 April 2006

[SMEDSEP]

 

This is the Monthly Email Newsletter of the DTI-TESDA-GTZ SMEDSEP Program.
Visit our website at www.smedsep.ph for more information.

 

As of 30 April 2006

We would like to welcome to the GTZ-SMEDSDEP Team Mr. Armando Datuin, Senior Expert for Local Investment Climate. Armando has extensive experience in Private Sector Development, having worked with the likes of the Australian-New Zealand Chamber of Commerce, the European Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines, and San Miguel Corporation. He has also worked with donors through the Asian Development Bank and SwissContact. Armando will be based in Manila.

We are also pleased to announce the details of our new office in Ormoc:
2/F Ormoc Centrum, San Pedro Street, Ormoc City
Telephone: +63 (53) 561 7512
Telefax: +63 (53) 255 2876

The office is set to be the first joint GTZ-DED (German Development Service, www.ded.de) office in the Philippines.

Enabling Environment

• The Philippine Development Forum, wherein the Cabinet members of the Government of the Philippines agreed on common steps with donor agencies on important areas for development, took place on March 30-31. The Head of DTI, Secretary Peter Favila, cited Business Licensing as a priority area for reform, much to the delight of GTZ and other committed SME Donors (IFC, Asia Foundation, ILO, ADB, JICA, ADB, CIDA) which have been supporting the DTI’s implementation strategy for the National SME Development Plan.
• The Development Academy of the Philippines (DAP) has been selected to do the Handbook on Best Practices on Business Registration, a joint DTI-GTZ undertaking. The Handbook will showcase examples of cities which have been successful in streamlining business registration.
• Furthermore, an Audiovisual Presentation on the lessons learned for Business Licensing streamlining in SMEDSEP’s pilot cities of Bacolod and Ormoc has been commissioned to the Philippine Trade Training Center.
• The Second Time and Motion Study was conducted in SMEDSEP’s pilot cities of Bacolod and Ormoc. It was found that for Ormoc, the number of steps it took to get a business license from the mayor’s office was down to 5 steps (from up to 17 steps) and took only 25 hours to complete (from 17 days). Meanwhile for Bacolod, steps were cut from 21 to 15, and time reduced to 16 hours from (up to) 16 days.

Local and Regional Economic Development

• Training Needs Assessment (TNA) in relation to the Follow up Training of Trainers (TOT) was successfully conducted in April 23-24, 2006 by SMEDSEP- GTZ team, together with DTI and TESDA representatives. The TNA was specifically aimed at validating the proposed learning thrust of the TOT 2 course:
  • Enhancing participants’ business/economic know-how;
  • Identifying the target participants’ training needs in the light of the wide range of competencies and tasks that an LRED Facilitator does; and
  • Collecting LRED-specific questions, topics, issues, and concerns that the target participants would like to receive further expert’s inputs, insights and advice.
  • Results of the TNA showed that there was scope for additional training in equipping participants with tools for analyzing the economic potential of LRED interventions and in generally improving their business/economic know-how.
  • Likewise, the 2 nd    LRED Training of Trainers (ToT) workshop was held with LED international expert Rolf Speit, as the main trainer.  The scope of the ToT covered improving the economic know how of the participants and equipping them with tools for analysing the prospects of an LRED-intervention from a business point of view.Participants of TOT 2 were both from the public and private sector, and are possible multiplicators of LRED in the Region. This is part of the sustainability and dissemination approach of the program.
  • As a follow-up of the first LRED Action Plans carried out in 2005, the 2nd Cycle of LRED Action Planning with the pilot LGUs (Baybay, Carigara, Ormoc, Palompon) were conducted, together with DTI and TESDA representatives, also with the support of Rolf Speit (for the overall facilitation/moderation of the planning workshops). Focus of the Action Plans developed this year are all geared on making the “lighthouse projects” more viable and sustainable.
  • Preparations are also underway for documenting and evaluating the 9 Lighthouse Projects undertaken in the context of this program.  The concept is mainly to showcase the LRED experience in Leyte, specifically the “quick win” strategy which is the identification and implementation of 9 lighthouse projects

Business Development Services and Demand-Driven Technical Vocation and Education Training

• To strengthen the capabilities of the SMEDSEP’s eight service provider-partners, plans are underway to conduct two runs of Marketing Plan Development Training for Service ProvidersCourse. The first run, slated last week of May, will be the Negros Occidental run for the three service providers there. The second run for the five Cebu service providers is, in turn, scheduled first week of June.
• The Program has also been busy monitoring the work of the partner-providers in Cebu and Negros Occidental, as well as that of the NITI (Negros Island Tourism, Inc.). The monitoring visits also provide opportunity for these providers to receive some technical advice and coaching from our Advisers in the areas of product development and pricing, and market development.
• As mentioned in the previous update, GTZ-Indonesia conducted a study visit to Negros Occidental in April so as to learn from SMEDSEP’s experience in Negros in engaging public and private stakeholders to jointly promote the island’s Tourism potential.  Jana Marie Mehrtens, consultant for GTZ-Indonesia’s Regional Economic Development (RED) program, met with Tourism key players in Negros, including some of the Board Members of NITI. She also had a meeting with DTI’s regional and provincial representatives.
• Still in Negros, two new training programs of partner-providers for the tourism industry were launched last month.  With the support of SMEDSEP, La Consolacion College-Bacolod (LCC) and the Visayan Maritime Academy (VMA) have developed two modules which aim to train new workers in identified critical skills and/or retool those who are already employed by tourism establishments in the province. The modules are as follows:
  • The Enhanced Training on Housekeeping (offered by VMA) aims to improve the housekeeping skills of resort and small accommodation facilities’ staff with the end in view of raising the level of tourists’ satisfaction vis-à-vis this area of service.
  • The Asian Culinary Skills Enhancement and Kitchen Management module (offered by LCC-Bacolod) is designed for chefs, cooks, kitchen staff and other food service personnel to enhance their culinary skills from the basic principles of cookery to Asian cuisine preparation such as Japanese, Korean and Chinese.
• Prior to offering the above module, LCC-Bacolod first underwent a SMEDSEP-supported Training of Trainers (ToT) on Asian Culinary and Kitchen Management, conducted by the world-renowned Center for Culinary Arts – Manila (CCA-M), in order to prepare for its new modular offering. However, Cooking trainers from other training institutions like the VMA and West Negros College also benefited from the ToT.
• GTZ-SMEDSEP was represented by BDS Senior Adviser, Markus Ehmann, and BDS Adviser, Rita Pilarca, in the Kick-Off Ceremony of the three-month long Second Cebu ICT Strategic Summit held recently at the Cebu Provincial Capitol. Said event was also graced by Cebu Governor Gwen Garcia.

Financial Services

• Asset and loan portfolio quality in the local banking industry remains a big challenge, with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (Central Bank) directing the industry to be more stringent in its credit and market risk management practices. As a continuation of SMEDSEP's capacity-building interventions with partner banks to help them cope with risk in banking, SMEDSEP will implement a Credit and Market Risk Management training with the help of GFA consultant Anja Peters, an International Credit and Market Risk specialist. Ms. Peters is in the country until May 9, and will be working with partner banks from all three pilot provinces.
• As with previous training interventions, the sustainability of the above training will be promoted by using local co-trainers from the Philippine Postal Savings Bank and Small Business Guarantee Finance Corp. by engaging them in a Training of Trainers course.
• SME Finance Flyers for the Rural Bank of Marayo (Negros) as well as FAIR Bank ( Cebu) have been developed and disseminated during the VisayasManagement Conference for Rural Bankers. Postal Bank Assistant Vice-President for the Visayas verbalized that their SME Finance Flyer has helped in making their SME lending (and even deposit products) known to the public.
• In Cebu, preparations are underway for studying the BDS Market for Financial Services. The purpose of the study is to come up with a plan on how the SMEDSEP training for banks (such as the Credit and Market Risk Management training mentioned earlier) can be institutionalized so that once SMEDSEP ends, competent Providers are able to carry on servicing the training needs of Banks for SME Lending.
• Ulla Toernroos , an expert in the field of SME finance and concept design and previously engaged by SMEDSEP, will be in the country from May 8-24 to design a concept for Financial Services for the Second Phase of SMEDSEP (i.e.under the umbrella of local investment climate, starting September 2006), in consultation with Program partners.
• Cooperation is ongoing with InWent focusing on Credit Scoring Systems for partner banks. This is part of InWent’s project on “Financial Services for SMEs in Asia”, with SMEDSEP acting as InWent’s main collaboration partner in the Philippines. An expert from InWent, together with Ms. Toernroos, shall work closely together with SMEDSEP to design the details of the cooperation, which will start in the 2 nd Phase. This scoring system aims to give banks a tool for risk evaluation, brining expected benefits such as decreased loan default and increased lending efficiency.

Trade Project

• Aquaculture Component: The Metrology, Standards, Testing and Quality (MSTQ) is holding a "Quality and Competitiveness Symposium and Workshop" on March 6 and 7 in Eduardo, Aboitiz, Cebu City.

 

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