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Celebrating a Synergy of Growth and Resilience When we celebrate anniversaries, we pay tribute to an institution’s resilience, its capability to stand up and survive history’s challenge. These are tests that the QUEDANCOR has gloriously passed through 28 years of performing its tasks and mandates. Indeed you have all the reasons to be proud. From humble beginnings as Quedan Guarantee Fund Board in 1978, you have grown and expanded, keeping with the challenges and demands of the times. Having just commemorated our own 19th anniversary last April 2, we in the ACPC share Quedancor’s sense of joyful celebration and thanksgiving for the strength, wisdom and fortitude we have received to surmount our own gauntlet of tests and challenges. Mutually Reinforcing Partnership Let me also take this opportunity to thank Quedancor for all the support. Indeed, as proud members of the DA family, the ACPC and the Quedancor have been sharing a mutually reinforcing relationship, with the ACPC acting as “big sister,” providing the policies, the loans and the monitoring, and Quedancor as “dear brother,” implementing the loan and guarantee programs that deal directly with our farmers and fisherfolk. It is in this spirit of sharing and family that the ACPC welcomes your choice of theme this year, which underscores the need for synergy between government and the private sector in order to achieve sustainable growth. It is this same synergy that should fuel and strengthen working relationships among government agencies. I’m thankful that the ACPC-Quedancor team-up and the cooperation among all government agencies involved in rural credit are brimming with this synergy. For at this very exciting juncture of our nation’s history, the key to national survival is the unity and determination of all sectors of our society to overcome challenges and seek genuine reforms and renewal, a process that we in the rural financing sector have long initiated and should continue to pursue. QUEDANCOR as ACPC’s Wholesaler On your anniversary, therefore, we in the ACPC look back with equal pride to our humble, but pivotal role in boosting QUEDANCOR’s role as a strategic financing institution that serves small farmers and fishers. Having been mandated by the AFMA to oversee the implementation of the Agro-Industry Modernization Credit and Financing Program (AMCFP), the ACPC tapped the QUEDANCOR as a wholesaler of the AMCFP in 2003, with Quedancor’s network of Self Reliant Teams (SRTs) among its retailers. With the P300 million initially released by ACPC to Quedancor in 2003 and another P250 million released in 2005, the total amount of loan funds released by ACPC under the program as of end 2005 has reached P550 million. As of end-2005, Quedancor reports that more than P 222.9 million has been loaned out through the AMCFP, up by 42% from the previous year’s P157 million. The year 2005 also saw end-borrowers of the AMCFP increasing dramatically from 8,650 beneficiaries at end-2004 to 16,000 at end-2005. These figures prove the wonders that can be achieved through the synergy of the ACPC, the Quedancor and all other rural credit stakeholders in empowering our small farmers and fishers through increased, accessible and sustainable rural financing. I have no doubt that, through our strengthened partnership and cooperation with other government and non-government financing institutions, we can look forward to more amazing achievements in rural credit. CIGI, Holistic Clustering Approach One particularly promising and exciting development is Secretary Panganiban’s approval of ACPC’s proposal to put up the DA cluster on Credit, Insurance, Guarantee and Investment (CIGI). Part of the on-going rationalization efforts of the DA bureaucracy, the CIGI Cluster aims to bolster the role of credit and other financial services as key components of agri-fishery development. The CIGI Cluster will bring together all the programs and activities of government agencies and corporations involved in agriculture and fisheries credit, insurance, guarantee and investments. Aside from the ACPC and Quedancor, other agencies and corporations included in the CIGI Cluster are the Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation (PCIC), National Agribusiness Corporation (NABCOR), Human Settlements Development Corporation (HSDC), Livelihood Corporation (LIVECOR), and the Northern Foods Corporation (NFC). Through this CIGI cluster, we hope to put in place a more holistic and coordinated approach to financing agriculture and fisheries that would facilitate inter-agency knowledge management, strengthen the management capacities of farmers’ and fishers’ organizations, and increase private sector participation in the provision of financial services. Many More Years of Partnership As a long-tested friend and partner of the ACPC and the rural financing system, I am sure Quedancor will go the extra mile to ensure the active participation of the other institutions in pursuing the CIGI vision. With the CIGI and the other financing programs we are jointly working on, I am looking forward to an enhanced and more dynamic relationship with the Quedancor in providing sufficient and sustainable financing to our poor farmers and fishermen. Once again, my warmest congratulations to all of you in the Quedancor and may we have many more years of productive partnership!