Srinivasan Sridhar, Chairman and Managing Director of the Central Bank of India, has offered 50 million rupees (over £600,000) for a proposed partnership with the Secretariat which aims to help young people establish and develop their small businesses.
Central Bank of India proposes lending programme exclusively for young people
11 August 2009
Fifty million rupees to be injected into the scheme
The Central Bank of India has proposed a partnership with the Commonwealth Secretariat aimed at helping young people establish and develop their small businesses.
The proposal, announced by the Bank’s Chairman and Managing Director, Srinivasan Sridhar, during a lecture given at the Secretariat’s headquarters in London, would offer concessional loan rates to youth for enterprise development activities. The Secretariat would complement Central Bank’s funding through providing technical assistance to ensure entrepreneurs develop sufficient capacity in running sustainable businesses.
“For developing countries, I think micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) development is the most important sector,” said Mr Sridhar. “For one, it provides employment and it is also very important for inclusive socio-economic growth.”
Mr Sridhar has offered 50 million rupees (over £600,000) for the proposed programme, which would be initially launched in India before being replicated across the Commonwealth. The Central Bank of India is a major shareholder in Indo Zambia Bank, a large commercial bank based in the Zambian capital, Lusaka. This bank could act as a platform for the programme to be easily replicated in Africa.
The project has been welcomed by the Secretariat, and senior managers are now locked in discussions to develop a fixed roadmap.
As well as proposing this ‘youth enterprise development’ programme, Mr Sridhar also offered to fund an executive from the Central Bank of India with experience in MSME development to work with the Secretariat full time for a few years on technical assistance programmes across the Commonwealth.
Mr Sridhar’s announcement followed a wide-ranging lecture on the global economic crisis and its impact on business. During the lecture he offered lessons which developing countries could take from the crisis, such as developing their domestic markets much more. He also suggested that there was a need to bring back a greater risk management culture, which would ensure, among other things, that investments are more prudent. Besides Secretariat staff, this lecture was attended by high commissioners and staff from high commissions in the UK.
NIce improvement in the website face.
It is a wonderful initiative. Mr. Sridhar's observation on greater risk management culture is indeed timely and important. His plan to replicate the programme in Africa is highly encouraging.
IT SHOWS THE COMMITMENT OF YOUTH DEVELOPMENT ACROSS THE ENTIRE COMMONWEALTH AND REALLY ENCOURAGING
This is a very good step by Central bank.
a golden chance for youth and great step by mr. shrinivasan shridhar
a golden chance for youth and great step by mr. shrinivasan shridhar
A gr8 step by CBI.
Mr Sridhar is always brilliant and I still think that he is going to be one the real leaders in financial services globally in the next few years I think Mr Sridhar’s concept could be conceptualized as a challenge fund which would be a sustainable mechanism for incentivising stakeholders to focus on youth - it could become the Global Youth Enterprise Challenge Fund (GYECF)
A great initiative towards nurturing entrepreneurship.
KUDOS TO THE SECRETARIAT FOR GETTING A PRIME INDIAN BANK TO EXTEND THIS POSITIVE AID.
delicious
digg
reddit
facebook
stumbleupon