ISLAMABAD: The vicious poverty cycle is destroying the country’s socioeconomic setup badly. The need of the hour is to encourage small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to create new employment opportunities, said Ghulam Mustafa, Deputy Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of ‘Business Talks’ (BT), Rawalpindi Office while talking to WealthPK.
Mustafa said they were helping entrepreneurs and SMEs to establish and develop their own businesses with whatever skill, ability, and capital they had. He said BT was actively engaged in encouraging small entrepreneurs to start their small businesses even from a low investment of up to Rs100.000.
‘’We do not finance anyone and do not get funding from anywhere. We help people to take a start through capacity building, their work potential, and financial strength. If they are skilled or keep any investment, we guide them about how to sell/utilize their skill/money by establishing micro-factories (MFs) or reselling. A minimum amount of PKR10,000 to a maximum of PKR10,00,000 is enough to take a start. We provide a variety of options for people to choose, i.e. packing, production of washing powder, bath soap, dish wash bar/liquid, phenyl, food products, etc.,’’ the BT CEO said.
Continuing the discussion, he said in the second stage, the people were guided about marketing and in the third stage, a practical demonstration of every product from raw material to a finished issue was presented.
‘’Finally, after the selection of the working category, necessary training is fully provided. At our own centers, training, residence, and food are free. If anybody asks for the trainer at their own place, they are charged. From expertise to machinery, Business Talks provides everything with after-sales service. In Khanewal station, we have 13 maintenance workshops,” Mustafa said.
Talking to WealthPK, Munzir Waqas, CEO of BT from Faisalabad and Sahiwal, said, “BT is an initiative taken by a group of friends to reduce unemployment and economic frustration in our young generation. Shahid Hussain Joya is leading our team. We took this initiative six years back and till now about 10,500 people have established their economic cycle through our platform. From different cities in Pakistan, people are contacting, getting information, and becoming an active part of the socio-economic cycle. The government cannot employ the whole population, but a great number of people can be self-employed by doing their own work.”
Talking to WealthPK, CEO of BT from Rahim Yar Khan Arsalan Akram said, “People, especially females, are taking too much interest in learning small business skills. We train them in preparing and packing food items and also impart to them a lot of other skills. They are trained in both manual and mechanized ways. The most important is that people are becoming financially independent through these small-scale pieces of business training.”
Talking to WealthPK, Kanwal, who has been running a micro-factory in Islamabad for the last three months, said, “I got only three-day training from Business Talks and started mustard oil extraction. I am selling it to different vendors, and even the by-product after extraction is profit-giving. I am sure that after a year, I will be at the break-even point and will then plan to expand my business. BT is a good platform to make people financially strong and to trust their abilities and skills.”
Muhammad Hanif from Rawalpindi is another successful example to take a start from the BT platform. Talking to WealthPK, Hanif said, “About seven months ago, I started a micro soap bar manufacturing factory with an investment of PKR500,000. My daily production is 2,000 soap bars and I am getting good market access. I am happy that I will grow and will not only support my family, but also help people become an active part of the economic cycle.”
