Female entrepreneurs need to upgrade, penetrate international market – WTO DG

The Director-General of the World Trade Organisation, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has disclosed that the WTO plans to assist female entrepreneurs in Nigeria to upgrade, penetrate the regional and international market and redress inequality through trade.

The WTO boss disclosed this during a meeting with the Minister of Women Affairs, Mrs Pauline Tallen, on Wednesday in Abuja.

According to Okonjo-Iweala, WTO is also trying to find small business holders and women entrepreneurs to upgrade their businesses to enable them to penetrate both local and international markets.

She revealed that WTO was working to support women entrepreneurs in the country, as it had assisted a women cooperative producing shea butter in Oyo State to upgrade and export their products.

“The challenge on how to assist women entrepreneurs so that they move from the small activity they are doing to the next level.

“So that they attain the quality that is required to be able to penetrate the regional and international market that is one of the things that WTO can help with,’’ Okonjo-Iweala said.

She added that the WTO wants to redress inequality through trade, and sees trade as an engine of economic growth which is what we need during this pandemic.

Okonjo-Iweala has been on a week-long trip to Nigeria, where she stated that Nigeria should start looking at establishing the capacity for manufacturing vaccines locally.

She also added that her role at the World Trade Organisation would be used to support women entrepreneurs, and MSMEs, and all the marginalized and excluded, in her meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari.

Suzan O/NAN/NM