DTI Bulacan Acting Provincial Director Cristina Valenzuela said that the program aims to help micro entrepreneurs businesses expand their market reach by complying with basic requirements, particularly product labeling.
She explained that having product labels is essential especially for food products to pass the standards and requirements of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
FDA accreditation, she added, will pave the way for local products to be exported to the international market and benefit from free trade agreements entered into by the Philippines with various trading partners.
Bulacan micro businesses are bidding to enter a bigger market in the country and abroad by offering creative products such as creamy peanut butter, leche plan, flavored cookies, tofu chips and pastries.
On non-food products, they are selling leather shoes, painted hats, garments, cloth and leather bags, slippers, sandals, accessories, perfume, cosmetics, and wooden handicrafts.
Meanwhile, Valenzuela urged other micro businesses who have yet to develop their product labels to take advantage of the DTI’s Level Up program.
The continued effort to make micro businesses become small and eventually large businesses, is part of the priority of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.’s administration to make the Philippines a high-middle-income economy.
In his fourth State of the Nation Address (SONA), the President has reiterated his administration’s commitment to help start-up.
“Patuloy tayong nagbibigay ng libreng training at puhunan para makapagtayo sila ng sariling negosyo. Hindi tayo titigil hanggang halos dalawa’t kalahating milyong maralitang pamilya ay matutulungan natin na magkaroon ng kanilang sariling maliit na negosyo. (We continue to provide free training and capital so they can build their own businesses. We will not stop until we can help almost 2.5 million poor families start their own small businesses),” Marcos Jr. said.
