Prince Qawi to launch YEAB today
By Suriani Garip

The APEC SME Business Forum that officially commenced yesterday will establish a national legacy called the "Brunei Initiatives" which will see the formation of the Young Entrepreneurs Association of Brunei Darussalam (YEAB) to nurture the development of young entrepreneurs.

The launching of YEAB will be officiated today at 5.30pm by Prince Abdul Qawi, the Executive Deputy Chairman and Director of QAF Brunei.

This will include the presentation of certificates of appreciation to YEAB logo winner and the launching of the YEAB web site.

The ceremony will be followed by a televised "town hall" session, which will be a dialogue between young entrepreneurs with "village elders" made up of successful business figures.

The chairperson of the APEC SME Business Forum, Dato Hamdillah, while disclosing this at a media conference yesterday said the launching of YEAB is among the distinctive features of the forum as this will provide the young entrepreneurs a platform to voice out their ideas.

He said that there are four parts of the APEC SME 2000 Meeting.

"The Women Leaders' Network, a meeting of 350 businesswomen, that will examine regional issues particularly in the area of skills development and training for women."

He said the SME Business Forum will consider how to stimulate economic growth through this vital sector.

"The relationship between the government and the private sector will be the emphasis of the E-Commerce Workshop and the E-Trade Fair will provide a setting for SMEs to display their products and services.

"We hope to help set the agenda for the region in these vital social and economic areas. The challenge of globalisation is to think globally. We are combining the recommendations of the SME Business Forum with action plans from the Women Leaders' Network and the E-Commerce Workshop. This integration of action plans has not been done before, but it is what is required in a global economy."

He continued: "Dealing with globalisation is no longer a matter of choice. The more useful question is 'What Asia Pacific region is going to do about it?' APEC has a vital role in answering that question, and that is what this forum is all about."

Dato Hamdillah further stated that in this SME Business Forum Brunei will deliver tangible and "implementable" recommendations to the SME Ministers in a joint session on June 22 and it will be further discussed the next day.

Another feature that will be highlighted in this forum is to provide the women delegates a bigger voice in APEC, for example a push to have more women representation in ABAC (APEC Business Advisory Council).

However, Dato Hamdillah said that the nominations of ABAC members are strictly under the discretion of the individual member economies.

He supported the idea that there is no problem for women to represent ABAC but at the same time he also believed that increasing the members of ABAC would not be appropriate.

Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin