About 67 youth are attending a four-day training aimed at empowering young entrepreneurs, which began in Thimphu yesterday.

This is Bank of Bhutan (BoB)’s one of the golden jubilee celebration activities under the theme ‘youth and amp; entrepreneurship.’

Through the training, the bank will identify three viable business proposals from the participants and provide a maximum financial support of Nu 500,000 without collateral.

BoB’s programme officer, Kencho Pemo, said that the participants would require a minimum qualification of class 10.

The workshop is aimed at training young entrepreneurs to promote entrepreneurship among youth, Kencho Pem said. “We are planning to guide the business for about one to two years because I think some might need assistance. We will be giving them our full support.”

The participants will be provided a month’s time to develop a proposal.

The bank accepted registration for the training since June 6.

“Within three days the bank had an overwhelming response with over 50 applicants,” press release from BoB stated.

The training will provide basic knowledge to develop business plan and on banking products and services.

“People are usually stuck with the proposals and plans. We want to help them,” Kencho Pem said.

BoB’s chief executive officer, Pema Nadik, said the four-day training would provide the participants a platform to interact with their peers and mentors from the bank and hopefully help them unleash their potential as future entrepreneurs and businessmen or businesswomen.

“We need to motivate our youth to seriously consider business and entrepreneurship as an alternative to salaried employment. In order to do this, we must equip them with the basic tools to start a business and that is the focus of this training,” he said.

Based on the response and the underlying objective, the bank will conduct similar programmes in a few other regions of the country.

Sujata Subba, a graduate from Gedu College of Business Studies, is among the many participants with the hope of receiving financial support and proposals for a business idea of an online food delivery service.

“Dish at Door is still at initial phase and we want to achieve bigger reach. We require more support. We hopefully want to expand it and employ more people,” Sujata Subba.

The training will end on June 14.

Phurpa Lhamo