Managed by IFC and co-financed by the Governments of Australia and Canada, PEP-Philippines was launched in 2006 and is designed to support the development of small and medium enterprises and increase their contribution to the economy. While PEP-Philippines does not provide direct financing for small and medium enterprises, its programs are carefully targeted to directly address growth and competitiveness issues that prevent small businesses from becoming the primary drivers of economic growth.
PEP-Philippines will draw on IFC’s integrated investment and technical expertise to implement projects that would ease small and medium enterprises’ access to finance, strengthen linkages between large and small market players and help improve the overall business environment.
PEP-Philippines looks to Mindanao, where poverty incidence is the highest, as a priority area for its projects. Rural finance, seaweed and local investment climate promotion programs have already been initiated in the region. The rural finance program aims to increase farmers’ access to formal sources of credit while the seaweed program will introduce a new technology to increase farmers’ revenues. The investment climate promotion program aims to help reduce the cost of doing business by simplifying business registration procedures.
Several programs are also in the design stage. They include a program to assist the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas in setting up a credit bureau, another to assist farmers in improving practices and gaining better access to larger and more profitable markets, and one to help companies with sustainable energy projects in accessing funds from commercial banks.
There are also ongoing studies to determine whether PEP-Philippines can undertake programs on small and medium enterprise banking, entrepreneurship training for overseas Filipino workers and developing alternative modes of settling commercial conflicts of small and medium enterprises.
