Women told to register business

By PETER ESILA
WOMEN operating small businesses have been encouraged to register their business with the Investment Promotion Authority (IPA) so that they can be profiled.
Peter Piawu from the SME Corporation told the Southern Women Business Exposition in Port Moresby last week that they were working with the Department of Youth Religion and Community Development to have statistics of women entrepreneurs in the country.
“In NCD, many women are still operating as informal businesses,” he said.
“Only 30 are formally registered with IPA.
“We would like to see you transit to a formal business.
“Thirty of you have obtained tax identification numbers and are actually operating businesses successfully.
“These 30 are employing between one to 11 employees as a registered business, so you can see the impact of this.
“This is creating employment for the family.
“Seven of 30 are doing business that promote our traditional culture … meaning you are into arts, culture, you are into tourism, hospitality, these kinds of businesses.”
Piawu said SME Cooperation had so far trained 13,000 entrepreneurs of which 30 per cent were women.
He said a survey on women entrepreneurs’ development database in the country was still on-going.
“This is the focus of Apec. We have already conducted the one for NCD in April last year,” Piawu said.
The programme for the Highlands will be in May: Mt Hagen – May 22-23; Enga –May 23; Jiwaka –May 24-25; Kundiawa –May 26-27; and Goroka – May 28-29.
Meanwhile, the Southern Region Women’s Expo ended last Friday with five women to be selected to display their products in the Apec Policy Partnership on Women Entrepreneurs Forum in May.
They will be joined by 15 other women from Mamose, New Guinea Islands and the Highlands.