PESHAWAR, Aug 26: There is a need to promote entrepreneurial culture as there is a lot of pressure on the job market already strained by around 800,000 young people adding to the country’s labour force every year.

This was stated in the draft national entrepreneurial promotion strategy being worked out by the NWFP Small and Medium Enterprise Development Authority (Smeda), sources told Dawn on Tuesday.

The strategy calls for increasing the proportion of independent businesses in the country, focusing on improving entrepreneurial qualities to assist the people interested in self-employment, sources said.

The draft strategy paper, sources said, had already been prepared and would be submitted to the authorities concerned for its adoption at the national level after taking input from the stakeholders including small-and medium-scale enterprises.

The strategy contained that 70 million of the 150 million people were economically active but the proportion of independent business ownership was three per cent. “This is well below the developing countries’ average ranging between six and 10 per cent and much less than the country’s potential,” the text of the draft strategy stated.

It pointed out that the country had the potential to increase the ratio of independent businesses to about 15 per cent if entrepreneurial qualities in promising young people were developed.

“It [low ratio of independent businesses] indicates a low incidence of private initiative induced by unfavourable business environment and lack of entrepreneurial culture,” the draft stated, while expressing the hope that entrepreneurs would create opportunities by starting and effectively managing new enterprises.

It pointed out that apart from financial problems hampering small- and medium-scale enterprises, other constraints hindering their growth included lack of expertise required to identify an economically-viable and profitable project in addition to the absence of a business plan and assistance in running such businesses independently.

“If SMEs are to be promoted, the existing and potential entrepreneurs would have to be provided assistance,” it said.