The Department of Trade and Industry has awarded 1,500 livelihood packages and zero interest microfinance loans to internally displaced people (IDP) of Marawi last month.
“We want to assure the IDPs that President Duterte’s administration continues to provide more business and livelihood opportunities through the DTI Negosyo Seminars being given to help them recover soon,” said Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez.
In a statement, the DTI said it had conducted a seminar for victims of the Marawi conflict on Jan. 30, which was attended by 1,500 beneficiaries.
As the head of Bangon Marawi’s subcommittee in business and livelihood, the DTI had distributed 588 livelihood packages and conducted Negosyo training to 1,963 IDPs as of December last year.
The DTI said it had allocated P50 million for Maranao entrepreneurs this year to fund shared service facilities (SSF), which would help make micro, small, and medium-sized enterprise more competitive.
The DTI brought to Marawi business experts to teach business preparedness, opportunities spotting, product development and marketing, financial literacy and franchising.
The beneficiaries were briefed on the microfinancing loan programs of the government through Small Business Corp. (SB Corp.), which developed a special zero-percent interest microloan program for the IDPs.
The program started last December and has so far benefited 229 borrowers, the DTI said.