ISLAMABAD: Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI) Senior Vice President Sheikh Pervez Ahmed has stressed that First Women Bank Limited (FWBL) should focus on providing easy credit facility to women entrepreneurs in order to help them in starting new businesses and expanding existing businesses. He said this while exchanging views with Ms. Yasmin Niazi, Branch Manager, First Women Bank Limited (FWBL) during her visit to ICCI. Both organizations discussed to work jointly for economic empowerment of women by facilitating them in promoting business activities.
Sheikh Pervez Ahmed said that women were almost half of our population and sustainable economic development required maximum participation of women in business and economic activities. He said their engagement in business activities would contribute significantly to poverty reduction and financial independence of families. He said Pakistani women have great potential to excel in every field but due to lack of financing & trainings opportunities, their talent remained untapped. He emphasized that FWBL should come up with innovative products and services for facilitating women entrepreneurs in business pursuits and for their economic empowerment.
Speaking at the occasion, Ms. Yasmin Niazi, Branch Manager, First Women Bank Limited said that FWBL was providing loans to businesswomen for establishing new business, expanding existing business and for working capital as well. She said businesswomen could get loans of up to Rs.2 million. She said FWBL was also providing financing to SMEs and it would make efforts to provide more attractive financing facilities to women entrepreneurs to facilitate them in business ventures.
She said FWBL was also committed to women’s economic empowerment through their capacity building & skills development. She said FWBL offered women trainings in the areas of entrepreneurship, beauty and computer skills and it would continue to train women to build their capacity for self-employment in various sectors. It was agreed that both organizations would maintain close liaison for bringing women in the mainstream of economic activities so that they could play more effective role in the development of country.
