KUALA LUMPUR: Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia (AIM) has allocated an extra RM50 million to empower Indian women entrepreneurs through the second phase of the Prosperity Empowerment and A New Normal for Indian Women (PENN 2.0) programme.
Deputy Entrepreneur Development and Cooperatives Minister Datuk Seri R. Ramanan said the additional allocation brings the total fund for the programme to RM100 million.
He said PENN 2.0 was developed after the success of phase one of the PENN, which benefitted 6,247 Indian women with a total financing amount of RM42,725,640.
“From the 6,247 recipients of this fund, a total of 1,062 were new entrepreneurs. Therefore, the announcement of the additional fund allocation of this RM50 million will give opportunities to more Indian women to involve themselves in business and at the same time improve their standard of living,” he said.
Ramanan said this at the launching ceremony of PENN 2.0 Empowering Indian Women Entrepreneurs at the AIM headquarters here today.
PENN, which was launched on April 14 last year, is a government initiative through AIM as the implementing agency to empower Indian women, especially in the field of entrepreneurship.
Ramanan said AIM is aiming that over 10,000 Indian women entrepreneurs in the country would benefit from this additional fund.
According to him, the target of this fund is not only for new participants but this effort will also strengthen support for existing participants to expand their small businesses in various sectors including food, tailoring, beauty and community services.
“Entrepreneurs who have received PENN financing have generally succeeded in increasing their income by 20 to 30 per cent compared to before,“ he added.
Since its establishment in 1987, AlM has disbursed over RM35.9 billion to Malaysians (especially women), in its ongoing efforts to liberate the poor and low-income groups from poverty.
