Caption: (second from left) NDB Managing Director Moses Liu.
By MATTHEW VARI
Sunday, October 5, 2014 (Sunday Chronicle, PNG)
THE National Development Bank (NDB) is set to launch a national Youth Enterprise Scheme (YES), by the end of the month, into the country to build entrepreneurship (free enterprise) skills earlier in the formal education system.
Managing Director of NDB Moses Liu revealed their plans on the panel of the Tanim Graun Q&A (Question and Answer) televisionshow under the discussion topic of,‘Tomorrow’s leaders today: Lessons from our young entrepreneurs’.
Mr Liu pointed out that the main purpose of the scheme is to encourage entrepreneurship earlier in the education system in the country.
He pointed out that of the 65,000 youths that dropped out of the education system annually- many are being left to fend for themselves without any proper business startup skills knowledge.
“65,000 dropouts leaving the education system annually and the community has to come together to seriously address this problem,” Mr Liu said.
“The big question for government now is on how to employ this huge number of youths out of the system.”
“NDB as the people’s bank has come up with the innovative product, which will be launched towards the end of this month or early next month.”
As the people’s bank and implementer of the government’s Small to Medium Enterprise (SME) policy, he said that it was vital to build the SMEs culture within the classroom environment.
“We do have a scheme that is going to be launched very shortly towards the end of this month or next month called the Youth Enterprise Scheme, which will enable us to provide credit to the school student from grades 9 to 10, and 11 to 12,” he said.
“The Introductory Enterprise Business is set to target Grade 9 and 10 students at High school, and in conjunction with the schools we will provide credit and there will be a process to be gone through to enable the release of credit.”
“It will then lead to the Master-class Youth Enterprise Scheme, involving grades 11 and 12.”
Under the introductory target, student from grade 9 and 10 will have access to credit from K500 to K1,000 and the master-class from K500 to K3,000.
“As long as they provide the equity, as there is nothing free, and we do not encourage free handouts in this case,” Liu explained.
“Every loan that we give out through this they must provide an equity of 30 percent, which will then be administered through the schools, and there is a proposal that is required to give them the earliest start in the documentation requirement of business startups lending.”
The managing director also pointed out the success the approach had in various countries throughout the world.
“It has been successful in other countries in the world, and those students who have undergone it have become better prepared and trained for the real world of business,” Liu said.
“Therefore, we are trying to introduce this so that our children are taught business entrepreneurship early on in their lives so that it is embedded in them.”
“So that in their professional lives when they cant go beyond years 12 or 10 they have something to fall back on.”
He said that full details of the product would be disclosed later when the actual launch takes place by the end of October.
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