The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) wants to finish the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of a law that will help improve the startup ecosystem in the country.
Trade and Industry Undersecretary Rafaelita Aldaba told reporters earlier this week that the IRR of the law would be released before the end of the month.
The IRR, she said, would include a mechanism to harmonize efforts of the three lead agencies tasked to implement the startup law.
President Duterte signed the Innovative Startup Act earlier this year, fueling hopes in the startup community that the Philippine government was seeing the importance of startups in looking for innovative solutions to societal problems.
Not every new and small company is necessarily a startup. It has to have an innovative model and a scalable model, according to Katrina Rausa Chan, director of Qbo Innovation Hub, the country’s first public-private initiative for startups.
The law tasks the DTI, the Department of Information and Communications Technology, and the Department of Science and Technology as the lead agencies to implement the startup law.
The law covers the establishment of economic zones for startups. The DTI, meanwhile, is also asking P300 million to be added to its budget next year to help local startups.
“In order for us to ensure that we’ll be able to implement the provisions efficiently, effectively, there’s got to be a coordination mechanism in place,” Aldaba told reporters.
“If there is no proper coordination, if there is no mechanism in place that would allow us to act as one body, then, it would be difficult… It would still be three different agencies, implementing different sets of programs,” she added.
“We have a lot of activities but primarily what we want to prioritize would be in terms of addressing the pain points of our startups,” Aldaba said, referring to the P300-million fund.
These pain points, she said, include helping them in marketing, access to funds and exposure to the global market.