An amazing growth in Bohol's micro and small enterprise investments has breached the P1 billion mark ↑ in just three quarters of this year, surpassing the total for the entire 2010.
The steady, stunning uptrend is safely projected to more than double last year's investment sum by the close of December.
These indicate that Boholanos who have savings are now getting entrepreneurial and, no matter how small in seed capitals, engaging in business ventures in their communities, according to the Bohol Investment Promotions Center (BIPC).
It added that getting the locals to become entrepreneurial signifies that the government, led in the province by Gov. Edgar Chatto, is supporting and providing opportunities for micro and small enterprises to thrive.
Rolaine Uy of BIPC said investments generated from January to September this year amounted to ₱1,309,386,000.00 as against the ₱792,458,771.05 for the whole of 2010.
The 2011 three-quarter figure already surpassed last year's total investment generation by as much as ₱516,827,228.05 or over half a billion pesos.
Chatto said the "modest" accomplishment of the economic generation efforts cannot be fully evaluated without citing the able functions of the BIPC and Bohol Business One-Stop Shop (Bohol BOSS).
Many have described the BIPC and Bohol BOSS as the heart and mind of Bohol investment promotions.
This year's third quarter from July to September posted the highest investments generated at ₱550.097 million from total registered enterprises of 756, with 626 of them new and 130 renewed.
The BIPC-Bohol BOSS recorded total investments of ₱366.426 million and ₱392.863 million in the first and second quarters, respectively.
Within the first three quarters, 1,807 new enterprises were registered while 390 were renewed, bringing to a total of 2,197 registered micro and small businesses.
Their individual capitalizations range from the lowest at ₱3,000 to the highest at P20 million.
An earlier BIPC report on the Bohol BOSS accomplishment showed that the investments generated for the first half of 2011 already almost equaled the annual total for 2010 at ₱759 million and ₱792 million, respectively.
This resulted from the quarterly increases in the number of registered enterprises and the capital that the entrepreneurs put up.
Last year's total investment caused 6,350 jobs but the investment in just first six months this year already employed 4,862.
According to BIPC, micro and small enterprises are good equalizers in the sense that economic chances benefit small-scale businesses in rural areas and provide jobs in the localities.
The thriving micro and small ventures manifest the rising number of entrepreneurs who are confident in the business enabling environment (BEE) in the province.
Refusing to sit on current gains, the provincial government thru the BIPC partnered with the Bureau of Investments and Department of Interior and Local Government in the conduct of the trainer's training for the LGUs on local investment and incentives code formulation.
INVESTOR-FRIENDLY
The BIPC cited the provincial government's investor-friendly policies and the institutionalization of the Bohol BOSS.
Thru a Sangguniang Panlalawigan ordinance, capitol has further empowered the Bohol Boss under the BIPC, emphasizing the one-stop shop as an institutionalized facility for a sustained business-conducive climate in the province.
It has strengthened the BOSS partnership with the mandatory agencies for business registration and related services such as the Department of Trade and Industry, Philhealth, Pag-IBIG and Social Security System.
The BOSS measure has enjoined other national agencies that provide business-related services to extend on-call technical personnel and establish hotlines or online quick-action links for the one stop shop.
Chatto signed in July an agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission on the set-up of an investor's desk for regular SEC frontline services at the BOSS.
The governor chairs the Bohol BOSS Governing Board, with members from the government, including national agencies, and private sector like the Bohol Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
The board is the policy-making body of the BOSS, defining strategic management directions and policy decisions to enable the BOSS to achieve its vision, mission and goals.
Regional executives of service line agencies lauded the Bohol province for being reputedly the first LGU to hire and assign personnel to act as frontline service staff of the mandatory agencies at BOSS.
The strategy has addressed the manpower limitation which had then constrained the agencies to assign own personnel to regularly provide agency services at the shop.
This capitol innovation has proved effective as latest numbers of walk-in clients have increased while the regular business client traffic is projected to get heavier in coming months.
Providing relevant, updated and useful information to the clients is one positive feature of the Bohol BOSS.
Bohol BOSS practices are consistently garnering high satisfaction ratings from clients, humbly admitted the people at BIPC which is under the governor's office and headed by Maria Fe Dominise.
