CLARK FREEPORT — Who has ever heard of Go Lokal stores? But this was what Trade and Industry Sec. Ramon Lopez boasted as a major accomplishment of his agency before Pres. Duterte during the recent annual National MSME Summit held here.
The project, said Lopez, is his agency’s “marketing platform for helping small and medium entrepreneurs (MSMEs) for mainstreaming market access incubation, marketing and branding.”
“Through this, our MSMEs have a 365 day exposure not just on weekends, and in prime location retail markets to be able to attract potential buyers,” he said.
To date, there are already 56 Go Lokal stores nationwide with 332 MSME suppliers.
Lopez also reported that these stores were able to generate P33 million sales from December 2016 to May 2018.
Some participants in the summit questioned the project, wondering how the DTI chooses beneficiaries.
“How can the project be fair to all if most MSME’s are not given the chance to apply for it simply because they do not know it exists,” said one participant who asked not to be named.
The government-run Philippine Information Agency (PIA) said in a press release that “With the Go Lokal stores, DTI and its partner institutions were able to give free market access incentives to small entrepreneurs as long as they have quality products,”
Lopez said project beneficiaries were given “free shelf space thus, they were able to save up to P7 million in terms of rental space. They were also able to save the listing fee of P3 million per product and their products have every day mainstream exposure.”
