THE Board of Investments (BoI) is preparing a national development plan that will accommodate inclusive business (IB) models at the provincial level.
“We are in the process of developing a national IB framework to integrate it with the programs of the DTI (Department of Trade and Industry),” BoI’s IB Division Director Melanie L. Moleño said in an interview with BusinessWorld last week in Makati City.
“The idea is for us to have a solid document to show that we can implement IB in the provincial level, because until we [don’t] have such framework, it will be hard to push,” she added.
The government conducts livelihood training and dialogues on IB to prepare local government units to work with investors establishing projects in their jurisdictions.
However, Ms. Moleño said public awareness of the concept remains low.
Citing a 2017 report, Business+ Philippines, jointly produced by the BoI, the United Nations Development Programme Philippines and the UNDP Istanbul International Center for Private Sector in Development, she said 1.51 out of 7 companies interviewed for the study still had very low levels of awareness of the IB concept.
Some also tend to confuse IB with corporate social responsibility activities.
Ms. Moleno said IB models aim to ensure that the poor members of the community make an impact on the company’s financial performance. This is achieved through directly employing them and procuring their goods and services.
The Philippines has standards to evaluate the IB friendliness of investments. Under the 2017 to 2019 Investments Priority Plan, at least 25% of total cost of services must be accounted for by micro and small enterprises for a venture to qualify as an IB.
Tourism projects are required to generate at least 25 direct jobs within target communities while agri-modernization projects should engage at least 300 marginalized individuals.
Of these quotas, about 30% must be women.
Income for those employed should be minimum wage or an alternative baseline income plus 20%, whichever is higher.
IB firms are also required to provide technical assistance and capacity-building to small enterprises, and facilitate access to finance.
Those who qualify are offered a five-year income tax holiday incentive.
However, the BoI said gaining eligibility is difficult for some firms.
“It’s not easy for companies to actually say they will engage 300 farmers… many change business models in the long run. What we want is long-term sustainability,” she added.
Since early this year when it started accepting applications, the BoI-IB has approved two projects for IB incentives. These are the Ayala Group’s P1.7 billion Seda LioResort in El Nido, Palawan and the Bulacan-based poultry processing plant of the Cargill Joy Poultry Meats Production, Inc., a joint venture between Cargill and Jollibee Foods Corp.
Asked if the BoI will review the policy guidelines to make applications easier, Ms. Moleño said the criteria are under review.
She said the BoI is looking for ways to recognize existing projects that employ IB practices but are no longer eligible for perks on offer. The current law prevents existing investors to apply for another set of incentives and be granted more than one incentive package.
As such, the BoI-IB is looking at establishing an accreditation system that will recognize existing and future projects as implementing IB practices
“That will at least acknowledge that a project is practicing inclusive business and they can add that to their portfolio,” she added. — Janina C. Lim

THE Department of Agriculture (DA) said prices of produce are stable at farmgate level and any irregular price movements are taking place at the distribution and retail levels.

Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol said prices at farmgate are stable and that he expects “the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to strengthen its price monitoring. Even the DA, with the help of the DTI, should intensify price monitoring.”
Mr. Piñol, in a social media post on Tuesday, also reiterated that the rising prices are due to speculation of inadequate supply.
“What needs to be done now is for government to exercise its full powers in checking profiteering and price manipulation in the market,” he said.
Both the DTI and the DA began joint market monitoring in wet markets after the DA imposed suggested retail prices on eight farm goods in June.
Among the measures pursued by the DA were the importation of 117,000 metric tons (MT) of round scad, or galunggong, to be directly sent to wet markets, and the lifting of the security safeguard measures for poultry to lower chicken prices.
A security safeguard measure is intended to protect domestic producers by temporarily restrict imports of a commodity.
“Shortly after the lifting of the SSG for poultry, the farm gate prices of broiler chicken which was at P95 per kilo a week before, steadily went down,” Mr. Piñol claimed.
“Poultry raisers rang alarm bells as the farm gate price plummeted to P77 per kilo [on Tuesday], threatening the profitability of the industry,” he added, noting that the retail price for chicken as observed by DTI, however, remained unchanged.
Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed that both chicken and hog posted increase in production to by 4.47% to 462,335 MT and 2.81% to 557,270 MT, respectively, in the second quarter.
This was attributed to better facilities in broiler farms for poultry and better farmgate price for pork.
Average farmgate price for live hogs for slaughter went up by 7.65% to P117.88 per kilogram (kg) while average farmgate price for broiler chicken posted a 0.45% increment to P86.76 per kg.
The two commodities are seen to have a steadily increasing demand by the last quarter, spurred by the holiday season.
The DA gave importers who did not utilize their Minimum Access Volume allocations the ultimatum to bring in their goods before August ends to avoid further increase of prices in the market.
Despite this, the DA junked the proposal to lower tariffs which Mr. Piñol earlier said can be detrimental in the long term as it would put local production at risk of lower priced imports.
Instead, the DA will be adding more commodities in the list of other farm goods with SRPs.
“This would be [imposed] before the “-ber” months [hit],” Mr. Piñol added.