Bandar Seri Begawan - Entrepreneurship could be Brunei's answer to its poverty problems, the president of the Brunei Malay Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BMCCI) said yesterday.

"We would like to develop entrepreneurship that could one day generate income for the country and provide more job opportunities," said the business chamber's FIj Razali Hj Johan.

"We would like to see and welcome all local participation as it could help us (BMCCI), as well as the country to reach the goal (zero poverty and unemployment rate)." he said.

He said the country's unemployment problem should be looked into, particularly in relation to private sector hiring. "If we look at the number of people working in the private sector, out of the estimated 130,000 workers, only about 54,000 of them are locals."

This maybe the reason why a lot of locals are jobless, he said.

Hj Razali said the chamber is encouraging all entrepreneurs to join forces as more interests and participation from them could prove beneficial.

He said the chamber's call is in response to His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam's vision of zero poverty.

He said the chamber would not only pay attention to short-term economic growth, but also long-term growth.

"We will strive for sustainable economic development at the same time," he said.

He said the chamber will meet with relevant government agencies as well as other stakeholders within the week to discuss the issues.

He said the chamber is tackling the poverty and unemployment issues as part of its corporate social responsibility commitments.

Among the objectives of the meeting were to identify the causes of unemployment among the locals, to discuss the negative implications of unemployment as well as to propose the best method to tackle unemployment problems.

As of May, government statistics said the unemployment rate is at 3.7 per cent.

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Write comment

Name

Email

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment