Lae holds two-day information market to sell gifts for Mother’s Day

With the theme, ‘Gifts for Mom’, the Lae Incubator Hub held a two-day information markets to sell gift ideas items for the upcoming Mother’s Day.
Lae Small-to-medium-enterprise SME Incubator hub held its monthly information market at the Botanical Gardens over the weekend.
Cathy Yangue, a mother selling pot plants at the Info Market, said that she preferred such organised craft markets to bring her potted plants to sell.
“I don’t like bringing my pot plants to the main market to sell because, most of the times we encounter other mothers arguing with us, that we are occupying their space for selling food crops,” she said.
Yangue said she only brought indoor plants to sell, seeing that many customers were interested in buying plants that could survive indoors.
“I sell my pot plants for not more than K100, depending on the trending plant, pot size or plant type,” Yangue said.
She said that they came to sell at the Info Market to earn a little as well as building a network with other SMEs.
Dianne Korau, of the Lae SME Incubator Hub organising committee, said this was part of the SME ecosystem that they were trying to build.
“What we are trying to do with our Info Market is to try setting up an SME ecosystem where stakeholders come to the markets and meet SMEs,” Korau said.
She said that it would make it accessible for SMEs to get exposed and help them to grow from a market table to a registered SME.
“Creating this ecosystem for them also enables them easy access to the government requirements to become a business.”
She added that so far, this year had been successful for all their market days and they looked forward to next month’s Information Market days.
Key stakeholders present were National Identification and MiBank officers providing services and information to any interested individuals. The Info Market also set up storytelling sessions that allowed SME owners who were present to share their experiences and challenges faced as an inspiration to other SMEs.