11 Asian companies honored

Eleven companies, one from each ASEAN member state were honored on Sept. 22  at the Ninth ASEAN Inclusive Business Forum in Pasay City for building business models that create real income for people usually left out of the formal economy: women, persons with disabilities, small farmers, and rural artisans.

“After nearly nine years of this work, the focus now is on a simple but important question: how do we turn these frameworks and commitments into concrete action?” said Trade and Industry Undersecretary Ceferino S. Rodolfo in a press briefing at the International Media Center in Pasay City for the 58th ASEAN Economic Ministers’ Meeting.

The awardees answer that question with numbers, not slogans.

In Singapore, coffee chain Foreword Coffee built a business where about seven in ten employees are persons with disabilities or people managing mental health conditions, proof that inclusive hiring can run a profitable, multi-outlet business rather than stay a one-time gesture.

In Cambodia, agri-food company Confirel works with 130 palm-sugar farming families and is now planting the first of a million cacao trees meant to give rural households a second, longer-term source of income.

In Indonesia, spice enterprise Agradaya sources from more than 500 farmers, over three-quarters of them women, turning small harvests into products now sold in more than five countries. In Timor Leste, natural and herbal products company M2T is transforming traditional knowledge and locally available resources into quality products with strong local identity, added value, and market potential.

And in the Philippines, host-country awardee Kawayan Collective has supplied over 95,000 treated bamboo poles for social housing projects, a homegrown, lower-cost alternative to imported steel and cement. The remaining awardees come from Brunei Darussalam, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam.  (Jinky Jorgio)