As of December 2022, the Small Business Corporation's lending for pandemic-affected MSMEs has already exceeded the Bayanihan funds downloaded by the Department of Budget and Management under the Bayanihan 2 Act.
To date, P8.20 billion worth of loans to 50,003 MSMEs have been approved under the CARES Program and for SBCorp's other lending programs targeted to assist MSMEs adversely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Given this, SBCorp has already exceeded the P8.08 billion in funds downloaded to it under the Bayanihan 2 Act.
As part of the government's response to assist in the financing of MSMEs affected by Covid-19 and its economic impacts, the Bayanihan 2 Act warranted a capital infusion to SBCorp worth P10 billion. However, only P8.08 billion was released by DBM, which was downloaded in November 2020. Out of this amount, P7.93 billion were loan funds, and the rest were allotted for mobilization and operating expenses.
Of the P7.93 billion loan funds, P4 billion was set aside for travel and tourism-related loans. The remaining P3.93 billion was used for lending to multi-ectoral MSMEs or businesses in the trading, manufacturing, services, agriculture, and other sectors.
In the tourism sector, SBCorp, in partnership with the Department of Tourism, also implemented a loan program for tourism enterprises known as the CARES for TRAVEL. Unfortunately, uptake for tourism loans was and remains sluggish. As of December 2022, only the amount allotted for tourism MSMEs remains from the original DBM disbursement. Most established tourism-related enterprises acquire loan from banks as they require bigger amounts. As of 30 November 2022, only P329 million worth of loans to 735 tourism enterprises have been released by SBCorp.
SBCorp. looks forward to disbursing funds previously set aside for tourism MSMEs to multisectoral MSMEs starting January 2023. However, tourism MSMEs and other tourism-related establishments may still avail of loans under the terms for multisectoral MSMEs beginning January 2023.