The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) urges micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) affected by the onslaught of Severe Tropical Storm Kristine, to take advantage of the loan programs offered by the Small Business Corporation (SBCorp) to aid in their recovery.
“This situation is not a good situation, but we can always move forward and achieve better heights if we just take advantage of the programs and ‘yung mga possibilities na binibigay sa atin ng ating gobyerno,” DTI Acting Secretary Cristina Aldeguer-Roque said in a palace briefing on Friday.
According to Roque, the government has committed P2 billion to the Enterprise Rehabilitation Financing (ERF) program under SBCorp, which will support all MSMEs in areas declared under the State of Calamity.
The ERF program aims to support MSMEs in mitigating the financial repercussions of disasters, including typhoons, by offering emergency working capital to address inventory losses, operations interruptions, revenue declines, and damage to fixed assets.
SBCorp provides loans of up to PhP300,000 for new and existing borrowers. The loans allow for monthly repayments over a duration of more than three years, and no collateral is required.
“Now that SBCorp is really aggressively loaning out money, whether nasalanta o hindi nasalanta, especially to the small and medium enterprises, we make the requirements not difficult,” Roque mentioned.
The program additionally features a zero-percent interest rate for the first year, followed by a monthly interest rate of 1 percent for the subsequent two years.
