Some of the Business Women attending the North West Standard Bank Top Women Conference at Sun City. Picture: Feed/Facebook.
Sun City: Moses Kotane. The North West Department of Finance, Economy and Enterprise Development and Standard Bank, are currently hosting the North West Standard Bank Top Women Conference at Sun City.
The conference is intended to provide enterprises operating in key economic sectors, assistance in facilitating access to trade and markets for women in business. It will also be used to introduce more women entrepreneurs into corporate supply chains.
Mr Frank Tlomelang, Chief Director for our Integrated Economic Development Services, in his opening address stressed the issue of gender equality in the business environment.
We as government and the private sector need to support these companies by reducing their cost of doing business and identifying opportunities to access markets. Special economic Zones are one such mechanism which government needs businesses to take advantage of. As the Provincial Government we will strive to uplift women in all sectors of the Provincial economy, to grow and sustain their business.
Mr Frank Tlomelang
One of the business owners attending the conference is Ms. Gaorelatlhe Mboweni, an SMME from Rustenburg who, in her testimonial at the Standard Bank Top Women conference, spoke of her journey from starting small to being incubated through the SEDA platinum incubation programme.
Mboweni shared how she grew her business from humble beginnings by manufacturing pieces of jewellery and selling them to students.
Afterwards Mboweni went on to do a fully-fledged course in jewellery manufacturing and then an internship in the jewellery industry, and eventually she started her own business called Hand Made Accessories.
The business manufactures various items of jewellery and recently won a prize from the Lonmin Mining Company for their 3D printing of jewellery.