Women Entrepre-neurs Furniture (Marble Mosaic) Exhibition 2011 concluded at a local hotel on Sunday. A Large number of visitors showed keen interest in marble mosaic based products. Prime Minister's wife, Ms Fouzia Gilani was the chief guest at the closing ceremony.
It may be added that Pakistan Stone Development Company (PASDEC) in collaboration with its partners United Industrial development Organisation UNIDO and Furniture Pakistan displayed Marble Mosaic products in the exhibition to highlight the skill development and entrepreneurship culture among women.
Mosaic is the art of decoration with small pieces of stone, coloured glass or other material. Pakistan's mosaic work is renowned not only for its design and aesthetic beauty but also because each product is made by intricate handwork. These products pitch high export when hoisted in the international market.
Speaking on the occaion, Ihsanullah Khan, CEO PASDEC said that natural stones like marble and granite with their unique physical and aesthetic properties comprises an ideal raw material for construction, furniture industries, interior decoration and handicraft.
He said under the special initiative, PASDEC is promoting the enterprise household models to support women enterprising activities for generating employment in rural labour market and produce value-added products of marble and granite, such as mosaic which is used in furniture and interior decoration equally.
He said PASDEC in collaboration with UNIDO is carrying forward entrepreneurship training programme of marble mosaic skill development for women.
The programme mainly, aims at poverty alleviation by imparting mosaic training and masonry workshop in rural areas across the country. The mosaic-training programme is designed to impart international quality training to women interested in becoming entrepreneurs.
Khan said Women entrepreneur marble mosaic sill development programme has multitude benefits for instance establishment of marble mosaic cottage industry at local community level. This will empower women create sustainable livelihood and better prolpspects for rural women and dpromote enterprising venture both at domestic and international levels.
Addressing the concluding ceremony, Inayatullah Durrani, Minister of State for Industries and Propduction said that Pakistani women have much potential to attain skill development like marble mosaic training for poverty alleviation in rural areas.
The UNIDO head of agency, Ms Shadia Yusuf Bakhat appreciated the high standard of the exhibition and said UNIDO collaborated with PASDEC to display the variety of marble mosaic stuff produced in Pakistan as it was providing training to a pool of women entrepreneurs in marble mosaic.