Small Biz development: Hooking up with the digital economy

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — “We are planning to promote small business development in the territory; fostering partnerships — both public and private; looking at new investments and developing our local products,” said Petti Tagipo Matila, who is the governor’s nominee to head the Dept. of Commerce.

With the plan of developing small businesses, Matila said the goal is to bring in more funding to loan to our local people to open up new small businesses according to their skills.

For “Local Product Development,” Matila told faipule that in this critical time of the COVID-19, we really need to look out for what is around us and see how can we create or encourage our people to create products out of things that are right in front of us.

For example, according to Matila, taro chips, a local product. It’s very simple, it’s a taro and you turn it into a taro chips and put it out on the market. Taro chips now sell on Amazon, which is a good example of the digital economy.

“This is a very good example of utilizing local product development and exporting it for the digital economy,” Matila said.

[Courtesy photo]