A group of 12 Small &Medium Enterprises (SME) and women entrepreneurs visited SMIDEX-2006, an SME trade fair in Kula Lumpur, Malaysia. The Pakistani group also attended the SME convention held from May 16 to 18 in Malaysia.
According to a massage received here the 'no cost' visits to Malaysia were the result of the untiring efforts of Faridah HJ Omer Shah, the president of the Association of Bumiputra Women Entrepreneur Network of Malaysia (WENA).
"We wish to transfer Malaysia women entrepreneur business expertise to Pakistani business women and support them by introducing their products and services to Malaysia", said Mrs Faridah Omar Shah.
She felt that the delegates who had participated had an opportunity to learn about the Malaysia market potential for Pakistani products. They also had the opportunity to become knowledgeable about issues of the WTO and globalisation from Pakistan's focus on the SME sector.
Sajjad H. Malick, Executive Director, Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) said that purpose of the SME women entrepreneurs' visit was to afford them exposure to the potential of Malaysia and also enable them to see how Malaysian women exporters are achieving success in the international markets.
He said that the NGO activities in the SME sector especially to support women entrepreneurship are highly appreciated and the EPB will programme to send women exporters every year with collaboration and co-ordination of WENA.
He pointed out that the EPB was working on the concept of establishing a Women Entrepreneur City close to Karachi. He also indicated that the EPB wished to secure support to WENA in this regard for the creation of Malaysian joint ventures of small scale export oriented industries to be located within this new city and to be run and managed by women entrepreneurs.-PR