Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2018-05-09

Implementation of the 'Women Entrepreneurship Finance Initiative

Taking into consideration the importance of motivating women entrepreneurs, a proposal has been made to implement a loan scheme known as 'Women Entrepreneurship Finance Initiative Grant Programme'. It has been planned to implement the loan scheme under the second phase of the Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Line of Credit Scheme presently in force, utilizing the financial assistance of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has agreed to provide. Loans will be provided to the women entrepreneurs who satisfy the following conditions and an amount of 20% - 30% of the loan will be given as a non‑repayable grant:

I. the requested loan should be Rs.750,000/- or more and 51% or more of the relevant business institution should be owned by women; or
II. the loan for which the request is made should be Rs.750,000/- or more and the following three conditions must be fulfilled;
- the minimum of 20% of the institution must be owned by women.
- the Chief Executive Officer or the Chief Operations Officer should be a woman.
- the women representation where the Director Boards exist, must be a minimum of 30%.

Accordingly, giving priority to the less developed areas such as Uva, Sabaragamuwa, North and East, the proposal made by Hon. Mangala Samaraweera, the Minister of Finance and Mass Media, to implement the loan scheme through 10 financial institutions island‑wide, was approved by the Cabinet.