Maru seeks Indian support for small-business training centre

NATIONAL Planning Minister Richard Maru was in New Delhi last week to seek support from India to set up Papua New Guinea’s first small-to-medium enterprises (SME) business incubation training centre in Port Moresby.
They visited the national small industries corporation (NSIC) in New Delhi on Wednesday to learn how India was able to create 10 million jobs each year for its young people and budding entrepreneurs.
Maru said in light of the high numbers of school leavers each year in PNG, India’s concept of SME business incubation training centres was a critical sector for PNG to take forward, especially for its youth population.
He said this was how PNG would be able to skill and equip thousands of its young people to go into self-employment, rather than look for formal employment that was not available.
“We see a lot of opportunities for us to gain out of this relationship with India,” Maru said. Under the medium-term development plan III (MTDP III), Government has included four regional youth business incubation centres using the India government model.
This centre is by far the most-successful Indian Government programme to skill and provide employment and business opportunities of millions of unemployed youth.
Ram Mohan Mishra, development commissioner of the ministry of micro small medium enterprises with the India government, thanked Maru and the delegation for showing interest in the work of NSIC, which is an Indian government enterprise.