‘Businesses should be encouraged’

Former governor addresses two-day exhibition for future plans.

KARACHI: Former State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) governor Dr Shamshad Akhtar said on Monday that entrepreneurship should be encouraged, as it creates jobs and brings new goods and technologies to the market.

Addressing a two-day entrepreneurship exhibition at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Akhtar said IBA’s programmes are in league with the Asia Pacific region as well as the global standards.

“We’ll have IBA collaborating with the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN-ESCAP) and have experts from China, Korea and United States come in to train people here,” said Akhtar, who also serves as the executive director of UN-ESCAP.

International and local entrepreneurs judged entrepreneurial initiatives presented by participants from different universities of Pakistan. According to the organisers, it was one of the largest business plan competitions held in Pakistan and was aimed at encouraging ethical and sustainable entrepreneurial ventures among students from across the country.

Over 300 students participated in four different categories, namely engineering and technology, computer sciences and information technology, arts and humanities, business and social sciences, and ‘miscellaneous’ like women entrepreneurs, medical, physical, natural, agriculture sciences etc.

Participants presented innovative products to the judges like solar vehicles, pomegranate biscuits, wild herbs, a scorpion venom farm, magic box and fabric that changed according to the temperature.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 23^rd, 2014.

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