Persistent advocacy for women entrepreneurs yields results: WCCI

PESHAWAR: The current year has remained worthwhile for the women entrepreneurs in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as their representative body, Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry (WCCI), succeeded in promoting their professional wellbeing.

During the departing year of the WCCI cabinet and executive committee tenure that is going to end on September 30, a number of initiatives were taken up to promote the women entrepreneurs in the province.

Shamamatul Amber Arbab, president WCCI, while talking to The News on Saturday said that they could manage to get grants from Chief Minister Pervez Khattak and Governor Iqbal Zafar Jhagra for the chamber to pursue their objectives.

She said the WCCI through a persistent advocacy pursued the case for soft loans for women entrepreneurs and the women entrepreneurs remained lucky as the governor State Bank announced a new loans product for the women entrepreneurs of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.

Shamama informed that for the first time they had been promised 25 plots, which would be dedicated for women entrepreneurs in all the 22 new industrial estates being established in the province.

Seven dedicated women parks would also be set up in Hayatabad and would be named after famous and prominent women of the province, she added.

“We have formed a Pak-Greece joint chamber to exchange our products and improve our economies. Greece, which is itself in need of the Pakistani goods and expertise, could work as a gateway to the neighbouring European countries,” she stated.

The WCCI outgoing president said that they had inked memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with the Hashoo Foundation and Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Women University to establish linkages for entrepreneurs and bridge the gap between academia and industry.

Similarly, an MoU has been concluded with Seed Ventures to encourage entrepreneurial ecosystem in the region. Since Seed Ventures is based in the UK, it will create links for women of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to do business in the UK as well, Shamama maintained.

She said that women entrepreneurs in the province also focused on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) initiative during the last year and a delegation of the Chinese women entrepreneurs visited the province who had been promised secretarial support by the WCCI for doing business with women of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Shamama, who is also an industrialist, said that the Peshawar Development Authority (PDA) management had committed setting up seven women parks and providing spaces for businesswomen in the Food Street and Sunday bazaar.

She said the International Women in Business Summit 2017 (WIBSUM), attended by stakeholders, including government and non-governmental organisations, multinationals and banks working for the economic empowerment of women, proved to be a joint platform to support women entrepreneurs.

The WIBSUM was attended by delegates from Sri Lanka, Nepal, Afghanistan, Iran and UK.