In a meeting held at the ADFIAP Headquarters in Makati City on July 19, 2012, ADFIAP Consulting (AC) and officials of the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) and the University of the Philippines Institute for Small Scale Industries: Small Enterprises Research and Development Foundation (UP-ISSI: SERDEF) explored cooperation opportunities in support of the tourism sector where growth prospects for micro, small and medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and its concomitant value chain abound.

DBP, represented by AVP Romeo Carandang and Ms. Leonore Tianco, is launching a tourism credit facility aligned with the identified priorities of the Department of Tourism (DOT) and anchored on the Bank’s four priority sectors, namely, infrastructure and logistics, environment, social services and SMEs.

To complement this initiative, ADFIAP, through the AC and UP-ISSI: SERDEF, is crafting tandem capacity enhancement programs (TCEPs) directed to: (a) MSMEs in the tourism sector value chain to develop financial management skills, good governance and environmental awareness and assist them in coming up with bankable project proposals and (b) Financial Institutions (FIs) to strengthen their MSME evaluation skills using the risk-based lending approach. The unique value proposition of the TCEP approach is that the culminating activity of this program would be a matchmaking session wherein the MSMEs that would have accomplished by then the framework for their business proposals, would present their projects to the (FIs), which in turn, would do an on-the-spot cursory evaluation of the feasibility of granting loans to the participating projects. The back-home action plan of the program would be the completion of full-blown project proposals by the MSMEs themselves for submission to the FIs, as well as the in-depth evaluation and loan packaging of these project proposals by the FIs leading towards access to finance by the MSMEs.

To support the above undertaking, ADFIAP is currently in search for a grant or technical assistance from development organizations to roll out these TCEPs in priority tourism areas, initially in the Philippines, with eventual replication in other countries where ADFIAP has members. AC was represented in the meeting by Ms. Cora Conde, Atty. Bert Reyno, Ms. Cecile Ibarra, Ms. Arlene Orencia and Ms. Cristy Aquino and UP-ISSI: SERDEF was represented by Ms. Arlene Liberal.