MULTAN, Oct 20th: Begum Romana Tanvir Sheikh,Senior Vice President of MCCI and spouse of former President of FPCCI has said that Women’s empowerment is a prerequisite to achieving sustainable development and prosperity. “We cannot formulate a strategy for development without considering the involvement of women in socio-economic activities.” Begum Romana said while exchanging views with other entreprenues here in MCCI that women’s role in families and in the workspace was neither fully recognised nor accepted and was, more often than not, overshadowed by men. She said soft loan schemes for women entrepreneurs could be introduced to empower them financially. She also called for raising the literacy rate among women and equipping them with vocational training and new techniques. She said that NPO ,TDAP and other Government institutions have initiated many training courses for entrepreneurial capacity-building and skill development so that women could achieve their objectives.Begum Sarwat Zahra said that Multan Chamber,for the first time,inducted a female Senior president which is a good step acknowledging the role of women in country's progress,prosperity and development.She said that women are mainstreamed in all economic sectors and become a visible and productive part of the economy.Today in this competitive world, women entrepreneurship (WE) and women empowerment plays significant role in the socio-economic development of all under developed countries like Pakistan. Women represent around 48% of Pakistan total population, while female employment participation is only 19-20%. As per Labour force survey of Pakistan , contribution of female labour is around 13.4% in Agriculture and only 6% are engaged in non-agriculture sector (formal: 2% and informal: 4%). This shows a significant potential for women empowerment and engagement in various sectors; such as light manufacturing i.e. garments (kids and ladies wear), leather products (traditional garments, shoes, etc.), home textiles, services, etc. Sidra Khalid Cheema said that Women Entrepreneurship Development System (WEDS) to improve competitiveness of the enterprising women who want to move from home-based business to a fuller commercial venture and start their own businesses. We have successfully established a pilot WEDS in Multan housing around 10 women entrepreneurs. The pressing increase in demand for a bigger centre in Multan to house more entrepreneurs by other women in the vicinity depicts success of this initiative. Khurram Javed Butt Secretary General of MCCI also joined them.
