Rising prices of commodities are more of a concern than the COVID-19 pandemic, Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion said on Friday.

Concepcion said this is what he told President-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr during their recent meeting.

"I have discussed with President-elect BBM ( Bongbong Marcos) my views about this, that the rising prices is a bigger concern than the pandemic which I believe is moving towards an endemic state," he said.

"Our growth rates will not be attained," he added.

Concepcion said during his meeting with Marcos they also discussed the importance of helping the micro small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).

"Well, the MSMEs are, he knows the importance, this sector is basically 90 percent of the business community. They contribute 62 percent of job generation in the Philippines. And we know and President-elect BBM know they have to face one of the toughest challenges in this pandemic," he said.

"The banking community is important to the MSMEs because the working capital is not as big as the working capital of the large corporations. Of course the banking community has higher confidence to larger companies, so President-elect BBM will help," said Concepcion.

"He knows, that to create an equal opportunity for all Filipinos and create greater prosperity for all and improve the poverty level in this country, the only way to help our MSMEs succeed, is to do better in surviving these current challenges," he added.

However, Concepcion expresses concern that rising prices of commodities in the country may undermine purchasing power of the consumers.

"The next challenge we face, is the Ukraine-Russian conflict which is creating a lot of increase in cost of our raw materials, everything ? from electricity, from fuel, from basic food commodities, of the prices has increase significantly," he said.

"It is scary because it can lead to a slowdown in purchasing power of our consumers... gasoline prices are almost doubled so it will really be felt by the consumer and it will affect their consumption," he added. Robina Asido/DMS