As the Philippines steers ASEAN this year, a seven-point strategy designed by DTI to empower MSMEs in 7 Ms is being adopted: Mindset, Mastery, Mentoring, Markets, Money, Machines, and Models. Each point was explored in separate panel discussions during the ASEAN 2017 MSME Development Summit with the theme, “The 7Ms Towards Shared Prosperity in ASEAN”. This was held last July 14, 2017 at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC).

At the core of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) agenda are MSMEs, mainly because of its number. In the Philippines, 99.5% of establishments as of 2015 are micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs). For the ASEAN region, MSMEs account for 95-99% of existing business establishments. With MSMEs being the majority, the Philippine government, in the figure of DTI, is convinced that in order to achieve prosperity for all, the “bottom of the pyramid” as DTI Sec. Ramon Lopez described it in his keynote address, should be reached and empowered. During the Keynote Forum in the Summit, ASEAN BAC Chair and Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion expressed that “the pathway of DTI’s 7Ms is the right approach.”