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Members of the Filipino business community in Dubai say a small number of Filipino nationals are leaving traditionally secure jobs in the United Arab Emirates after saving enough cash to start small businesses, in what is seen as a new trend.
Jojie Dinsay, Commercial Attaché of the Philippine Embassy in the UAE, said that the goal of some Filipinos is no longer to become numbered employees of thousands of UAE companies, but to one day become their own bosses. An estimated 500,000 Filipinos live and work in the UAE.
“We have traditionally focused on employment and trade, and entrepreneurship has never been our main focus. But now we are holding seminars to promote small business development,” Dinsai said. “This is becoming an important aspect of our function. In the Philippines, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are the economic engine of the country.”
“More and more Filipinos are becoming more and more interested in entrepreneurship in the UAE. We don’t have any figures yet on how many Filipinos there are, it’s something we are working on.”
It is estimated that 85% of businesses in the UAE are SMEs.
Dinsai said the challenge is to maintain a highly employable Filipino workforce in the UAE, but also to support those who plan to be more autonomous as their own business leaders.
“We want to train Filipinos here not only so that they can perform well in their regular jobs, but when they return to the country, they can start their own businesses,” Dinsay said.
“Hopefully they can save enough money here to start small businesses. This will provide employment opportunities, which is what we really need in the Philippines. That’s why we are really promoting entrepreneurship.”
In 2010, the Philippine Embassy in Abu Dhabi will host two types of entrepreneurship workshops: financial literacy, which instills the basics of financial planning, managing money, and investing; and how to focus on accumulating start-up capital through a simple personal savings plan. Conduct business.
Dinsai said the idea is catching on among Filipinos of all ages, who are seeking advice from financial professionals on how best to store the startup capital needed to finance emerging small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
Philippine National Bank first vice president and Mena Cheng Rasul regional representative said Filipinos do not want business loans issued. He said they prefer to save money the old-fashioned way, depositing it in a bank.
“Requests from Filipinos have tripled,” Rasul told Gulf News. “We have seen a 15% increase in our deposits. They are saving as much as they can and after a certain amount, they want to invest in a small business. .”
Save three times
Rasool said requests for savings accounts tripled during the recent economic hardship out of fear for their safety while working at the company.
He said that as layoffs occurred during the 2009 world recession, people began to save more “for uncertain times”.
“Most of the workers here want to go back to the provinces where they belong and start their own small businesses. But they don’t have the money, that’s why they are saving with us now,” he said.
Rasul said some of his clients have returned to the Philippines with enough money to open small grocery stores and other small businesses that cater to the local market, such as restaurants and laundry services.
“Some people buy land while working in the UAE so that they can grow fruits and vegetables for their own businesses when they return home,” Rasool said.
Lucille A. Ong, president of the Philippine Business Council (PBC) in Dubai, said she was pleased to see the boost of entrepreneurship in the community.
Ong helped found PBC in April 2001 and is also the CEO of Unlimited Design, which she founded several years after owning her own fashion company.
The businesswoman says running her own business is taxing and the hours are long, but she recommends it to anyone who truly believes they can manage a new venture.
“The number of new small business owners in the Filipino community is still small, but the number is increasing,” Ong said.
“This is a trend by people who are brave enough to step out of the corporate environment. Because of the economic crisis, people realize that you can be fired at any time.”
Cash inflow
The Philippine Business Council is proud to offer small business courses for the past nine years with some success in Dubai.
Ong noted that some people who left pretty good jobs to start their own businesses said they found a “sense of freedom.” But this must be balanced with the recognition that as owner and manager “you are the bottom line.”
“Ultimately it’s still your decision. You have to be patient enough to knock on 10,000 doors and only see 10 open. But those 10 can lead to endless possibilities,” she said.
The transition from employee to employer is significant, given the country’s longstanding tradition of requiring Filipinos to immigrate to other countries to work for secure, high-paying companies.
Traditionally, working abroad was not seen as a stepping stone to entrepreneurship, but rather as a means of sending savings back home to improve the quality of life of working families.
For example, in 2009, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) made dire predictions that remittances to the Philippines from nationals working overseas would plummet by 6% that year.
This decline is expected to push the Philippines into a deep recession, given the massive cash inflows into the country.
However, the pessimistic outlook never materialized and more OFWs were hired abroad, resulting in a 5.6% increase in workers’ repatriated savings.
Jennifer Jardin-Manalili, Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) team leader, said: “We have experienced a surge in demand for overseas Filipinos as mass unemployment plagues the industrialized world and the countries that rely on its economies. Demand for labor, international capital is being repatriated. Unprecedented increase in Philippines [Overseas Filipino Worker] money transfer”.
“The average number of deployments increased to 3,897,” Jardin-Manalili said in POEA’s annual report. [Overseas Filipino Workers] Every day, 10.5% more new workers are deployed and 15% more workers are rehired, which is the highest in the history of overseas labor.”
“[Overseas Filipino Worker] The report said total remittances this year reached an unprecedented $17.348 billion (Dh63 billion), accounting for 9.5% of the country’s GDP.
Jardine-Manalili attributes the high demand for Filipino workers to their strong record as loyal, hard-working employees who remain loyal to their foreign employers while living abroad.
“We can only agree with economist Bernardo Villegas’s observation that OFWs possess qualities that ordinary migrant workers in other developing countries generally do not possess,” she said. “Filipinos are usually the first to be hired and the last to be fired. They are more popular than others, not just because they are versatile or they easily learn new languages and adapt to different cultures, but mainly because they don’t shy away from work. “
She said the driving force behind Filipinos’ work ethic is the desire to send as much money home as possible to build a better future for their families.
“As the host country faces economic chaos, the obligation and dedication to repatriate their hard-earned income is etched in the hearts of every overseas Filipino worker,” Jadin Manalili said. “They work twice as hard and live frugally. , to improve the quality of life of the people in our hometown.”
POEA reported that the UAE “newly hired and rehired” a large number of Filipino workers in 2009, estimating the number of Filipino expats at about 500,000.
POEA reported that the number of new Filipino workers in the UAE increased from 193,810 in 2008 to 196,815 in 2009, an increase of 1.6%.
In comparison, Saudi Arabia hired or rehired 291,419 Filipinos in 2009, an increase of 5.6% during the same period.
Globally, “a record 1.4 million OFWs were deployed in 2009, with an increase of 15.1% in more than 190 destination countries,” the report said.
The first priority for foreign workers is to send cash home and ensure there is money in the bank for any emergencies. Many people have an entrepreneurial spirit and are keen to start their own business.
UAE ranks high for entrepreneurship
According to the World Bank’s Doing Business 2010 report, the UAE ranks highly in the report’s ease of doing business category, ranking 33rd out of 183 national economies studied.
In 2010, the UAE’s ranking in this category improved by 14 places, up from 47th in 2009.
The report classified the UAE as a “high-income” country, with a gross national income per capita of US$54,606.
In the starting a business category of the report, the World Bank said that setting up a new business in the UAE requires eight steps within 15 days and requires capital start-up costs of 6.2% of per capita income.
The UAE scored extremely well in the “Paying Taxes” category, ranking fourth out of 183 countries, as the country pays no corporate or personal income tax.
The UAE has also achieved good results in “cross-border trade”, ranking fifth in the world.
Activity
UAE confidence shows signs of success
According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2009 Global Report, the UAE has a vibrant entrepreneurial spirit.
The study, released in January, showed that despite a fall in the number of new businesses last year, a third of 54 countries, including the UAE, “demonstrated an increase in activity” in the entrepreneurial business sector.
The report places the UAE in the innovation-driven category, “an economy characterized by the production of new, unique goods and services through complex and often pioneering methods.”
GEM found that the UAE’s overall early-stage entrepreneurial activity (TEA) is faster than other countries in the innovation category.
TEA is described as the proportion or percentage of the population who are “owner-managers of businesses or new enterprises.”
“Among innovation-driven economies, the UAE and Iceland have the highest proportions of TEAs, with the United States ranking only in the top quartile,” the report states.
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