The Buenos Aires government launched a platform for entrepreneurs in the popular economy to offer their products

The Ministry of Human Development and Habitat of the City of Buenos Aires presented the Popular Value Platform on Tuesday. As they explained, it will be “a space for commercial linkage that will allow companies to access products and services of the social and popular economy in a direct and simple way, so that they can begin to include them in their formal value chain as suppliers”.

They also explained that the benefit will be for both productive units, companies and the public because “it implies the possibility of viewing the total available supply in one place and obtaining the contact information of the enterprises”.

The launch event took place at the Metropolitan Design Center, in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Barracas, and was led by the Minister of Human Development and Habitat, María Migliore.

“This project proposes to give more visibility to the popular economy sector, so that it can be linked to the private world. We are taking very concrete steps to make work more and more valuable. It gives me joy to be here because a long time ago we thought it was impossible and that today it is a concrete milestone is very important,” said Migliore.

At the event, Oscar Monzullo, from Librería del profesional, and Sonia Álvarez, from the November 17 Cooperative, had the opportunity to share their experiences as members of the social and popular economy.

“For entrepreneurs and cooperatives, the platform represents a great opportunity for the rest of the companies to learn about our products and services. We have great strength for entrepreneurship, we do it with a lot of passion and a lot of love, but we also have difficulties, and the great difficulty is to compete with the rest of the companies in the market. This platform is a stained glass window where we can show ourselves, and so they can get to know us,” Monzullo explained.

On the other hand, Álvarez said: “We want to be able to continue working day by day. We are happy for the birth of this platform, we want to thank the accompaniment because they are always with us. We want to show that we can do what other companies do, feel proud that we can develop like everyone else and be known.”

The universe of the popular economy in the City of Buenos Aires is made up of around 413,000 people, that is, almost 1 in 5 workers. The areas with the greatest growth potential are textile industry, gastronomy and tourism, urban logistics, care, construction, trade, green economy. The Registry of Productive Units of the Popular and Social Economy (Rupepys), which functions as the gateway to the tools offered by the City government, currently has 3053 registered productive units and involves 9133 people. In addition, within the framework of the law for the sector, the Ministry has a Technical Assistance program aimed at increasing productive capacities and expanding the marketing tools of each enterprise; encourages the association of companies and private sector organizations in general with UPs through mentoring; and launched FONDES, a fund that combines public and private capital to finance productive projects of the popular economy.