ARE you the owner of a micro small or medium enterprise with hopes of going bigger but doing so entails a capital that you do not have yet?
Check out the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) Small Enterprise Technology Upgrading Program (SET-UP).
SET-UP is a DOST banner program assisting and helping entrepreneurs on the improvement of their products and processes, explains DOST Bohol Provincial Science and Technology Center chief Vina Antopina, during the PIA’s online Show Piskay Ni Bay last week.
Entrepreneurs who may be doing quite well, but when the demand grows and their market increases, they may not be able to cope up because they could only do as much with their adopted processes.
Here, experts from DOST will see them, take a look at their processes and when they find that there is a need for innovation support, there is a need for more capital to purchase key equipment, the DOST can come in and help.
The DOST can bring in the money so the entrepreneur [you] can still use his capital which is needed to keep the business alive.
SET UP is the government’s new rent to own scheme, as opposed to the dole-out system that turns out ineffective that beneficiaries do not always take good care of the equipment.
According to Antopina, entrepreneurs can go for P3M upgrade and the local and Regional DOST can process the application, or should the business need more, upgrade capitalization for over P3M is approved at the DOST Central Office.
This is a zero-interest rent-to-own scheme that will bind the beneficiary some three years to pay for the upgrade, and with a grace period of one year after the release of the upgrade.
In essence, the entrepreneur does not pay on the first year to allow him to shop for the equipment, bid and select that which they would use, while when this is done, the DOT then pays for the equipment.
Moreover, Antopina said in the case of food processors, the level of help does not just include the purchase of equipment for the upgrade, it also includes packaging and labeling, laboratory analysis, nutritional facts determination, shelf-life, microbial analysis, which entails a lot of costs should this be left for the entrepreneur alone.
She also bared that aside from food processing, DOST is also supporting those into metals and engineering, upholstery and furniture, gifts, housewares and home decors, agriculture, aquaculture, wellness and still other fields.
As to their requirement, DOST said they are into those who have been in the industry for at least three years, and those with a good fiscal management to afford them the capacity to pay and still survive.
But even then, she said that are also getting into financing the SETUP of new start-up companies.
The applicant too would be required to write a business proposal, to which the DOT can guide.
We are also helping in the drafting of the project proposal as we have done to the over a hundred set-ups in Bohol since 2004, the lady PSTC chief shared.
And as government assistance in SETUP, the applicant should have a legitimate mature business, with the necessary barangay and mayor’s permits, business name and registered at the Bureau of Internal Revenue to they can have official receipts.
This is necessary because the DOST would be issued the business’ official receipt as soon as they turn over the equipment.
And if in case you are this business needing the needed upgrade to improve productivity, expand markets and innovate, the DOST doors are always open.
Get to them at Lino I. Chatto Drive, new Capitol Complex, Tagbilaran City. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)
