GAINING GROUND. Assets of 294 cooperatives who submitted their reports to the Cooperative Development Authority, has reached almost P7 billion, which means that the cooperative sector is gaining ground in terms of providing socio-economic services to their members, said Julius Oxales, officer in charge of the City Cooperative Office.(Paulo C. Rizal/davaotoday.com)
DAVAO CITY, Philippines— The City Cooperative Office will focus on the development of micro-cooperatives to help them establish their business.
Julius Oxales, office-in –charge of City Cooperative Office said they are currently assisting 158 micro-cooperatives in the city, many of them have assets under P3 million.
Oxales cited the case of the Agdao Multi-Purpose Cooperative which already reached P1 billion in terms of assets last June 2016.
“This is a huge development and increase in the cooperatives since cooperatives only start from the small capital and now they have reached the P1 billion mark,” he said.
He said that the figures show that the cooperative sector is improving in terms of providing socio-economic services in all our cooperative members.
Micro-cooperatives may avail of the city’s soft loans to help them develop. Oxales said that this is a big challenge for them on how to develop further these micro-cooperatives. Currently the micro-cooperatives are given trainings, seminars and initial capital to start up their business.
Oxales said that the training aims to avoid mismanagement of cooperatives.
“The members should have cooperative education to avoid the abused of cooperative officials,” he said.
Oxales said that to create a micro-cooperative, applicants should be registered in Cooperative Development Authority (CDA), latest and audited statement, a proof that a cooperative has never been bankrupt, and submission of the proposal.
On October 1, Oxales said they would launch the opening of the cooperative month celebration at People’s park here.
Oxales said that as of now, there are already 600 plus cooperatives actively operating in Davao City.
This year, he said that all the operating cooperative will already reached almost P7 billion in terms of assets based on the figures of CDA. (davaotoday.com)
