MULTAN: Punjab Vice President of Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) Masooma Sabtain on Monday urged the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) and Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) to introduce a policy specifically meant to encourage women entrepreneurs.

Talking to APP, she said the TDAP and SMEDA had not yet come up with a separate policy to encourage women entrepreneurs despite the fact that women were around 48 per cent of the population.

The issue came to light when she became a part of the exercise at the forum of the FPCCI to assess policies formed for women entrepreneurs and the level of their implementation.

She said that 14 women chambers were functional in the country in addition to women committees working as a part of different chambers of commerce and industries.

However, proposals and recommendations sent by these women-exclusive business forums have not yet been considered.

That is why, the FPCCI has started work on a 'Women National Business Agenda' to formulate a policy to address problems confronting women entrepreneurs and submit it to the government, said Masooma who had also served as president of the Woman Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Multan.

She urged the government to consult stakeholders before finalizing the policies.

She said the FPCCI was keeping all the chambers on board and a plan had been finalized under which proposals were being considered on the SBP credit guarantee policy, trade policy framework, SMEDA's SMEs policy and TDAP policy.

She said that the policy draft would also be shared with the political parties to make it a part of their election manifesto for the forthcoming general elections 2018.