São Paulo – Six thousand female entrepreneurs from Brazil will receive coaching and training on how to export their products, in an action lasting until 2017. The initiative is a partnership between the Brazilian Export and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex-Brazil) and the online services platform Rede Mulher Empreendedora. The project was announced this Tuesday (1st) in São Paulo at the launch of the Trailbrazers Summit, a meeting within the Women Vendors Exhibition and Forum (WVEF).
The event is taking place in Brazil for the first time, through a cooperation between Apex-Brasil and the International Trade Centre (ITC), a branch of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and of the United Nations focusing on developing business in emerging countries.
The president of Apex-Brasil, David Barioni, said the agency will coach entrepreneuring women because this broadens their business opportunities and their work on the market, and yields results to Brazil as they begin to sell to foreign countries. Apex-Brasil will invest R$ 500,000 during the first year of the project. The goals, Barioni said, include providing guidance on business administration and aftersales techniques.
“Brazilian entrepreneurs work hard in order to export, but when the domestic market shows strength, they favor it to the detriment of exports. Succeeding in exporting is difficult, but resuming exports once you’ve stopped is oftentimes more difficult,” he claimed. Apex-Brasil will also attend the events organized by Rede Mulher Empreendedora in the states, where it will showcase its projects to businesses with an export culture and ones that aren’t used to doing it.
Training 6,000 female entrepreneurs is part of the ITC’s target of having 1 million of them active in the global market by 2020. In addition to empowering women, the target contributes to one of the United Nations’ own goals: eliminating extreme poverty by 2030.
“If we want to reduce poverty by 2030, then we will have to engage women in the economy more,” said ITC CEO Arancha González. She said out of some US$ 15 trillions allocated to government purchases each year, less than 1% are businesses run by females. “A healthy economy needs two engines to function, and these two engines must be able to work on equal terms,” she said, comparing the opportunities available to men and women.
The launch of the partnership to encourage female entrepreneurship is one of WVEF’s initiatives. The event runs until next Thursday (3rd ). Until then, there will be lectures and matchmaking. The latter will help promote the event – and business between outfits run by women and multinational corporations.
During the WVEF, the winning project at Tech Challenge 2015 will be announced. The challenge is a partnership of the Apex-Brasil, the ITC and technology companies Google and CI&T. The competitors have developed applications for entrepreneuring women to connect with their peers around the world and to do business among themselves.
At the end of the WVEF, a document will be drafted for presentation during the 70th United Nations General Assembly, in New York, from September 28th to October 6th. It will call on governments to roll out measures designed to support female entrepreneurship.
WEVF Forum
Wednesday (2nd)
8:30 to 10:30am – Opening session
2:30 to 6pm – Matchmaking
Thursday (3rd)
8:30 to 11am – Matchmaking
11am to 1pm – Matchmaking
2 to 4:30pm – Matchmaking
MAKSOUD PLAZA HOTEL
Alameda Campinas, 150 – Bela Vista district, São Paulo, Brazil
Telephone: +55 11 3145-8000
Additional information: http://www.intracen.org/itc/events/women-vendors-exhibition-and-forum/
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
