Govt urged to provide interest free loans to youth

Islamabad : President Ahmed Hassan Moughal, Senior Vice President Rafat Farid and Vice President Iftikhar Anwar Sethi of Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI) have called upon the government to focus on introducing interest-free youth business loans to enable youngsters to start their own businesses and play more effective role in poverty alleviation and economic development of the country.

They lauded the prime minister’s move to approve the ‘Wazir-i-Azam Kamyab Naujawan Programme’ (WAKNP) and termed it a positive development as it was aimed at providing job opportunities, education, soft loans and professional skills to the youth of the country. They said such initiatives would be helpful in utilizing the talent of youth for improving the economic development of the country.

Ahmed Hassan Moughal said that majority population of Pakistan was comprised of youth while almost 2 million youngsters were entering job market every year. He said it was not possible for the government to provide jobs to all youngsters and the best way to cope with unemployment was to attract youth towards entrepreneurship. He said many youngsters were interested in starting their own business, but due to lack of funds, they were unable to achieve this goal while due to tough collateral conditions, it was not possible for them to obtain credit from banks. He said in such scenario, government should come forward and provide interest-free loans to youth for business startups. He said by starting own business, youth will not only get financially strong, they would create jobs for others as well.

ICCI president said that WAKNP should focus on promoting entrepreneurship in youth as Pakistan was a huge market of over 200 consumers that offered great potential for new businesses. He stressed that government should introduce the subject of entrepreneurship right from school level so that maximum youngsters could feel motivated towards entrepreneurship so that they could achieve a prosperous career, play role for poverty alleviation and make signification contribution towards economic growth of the country.