AMN / Hyderabad
US President Donal Trump’s daughter and Advisor Ivanka Trump today said that entrepreneurship activity among women increased by 10 percent globally between 2014 and 2016.
Speaking at the 8th Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) at HICC here, she said in United States, within the last decade, the number of women-owned firms has grown by 45 percent. Even more promising, minority women have started nearly 8 in 10 new women-owned businesses.
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“Today, more than 11 million women in the United States own businesses. They employ nearly 9 million workers, and generate over $1 trillion dollars in revenue” she said adding that many women become entrepreneurs and job creators out of necessity – some weren’t given the flexibility they needed at work to care for their families. Others lacked professional sponsors, or they weren’t given a fair shot at a promotion.
She said that fueling the growth of women-led businesses isn’t simply good for our society – it’s good for our economy. One study estimates that closing the gender entrepreneurship gap world-wide could grow our global GDP by as much as 2 percent.
The women in this room can help lead the way to closing this gap and ushering in a new age of greater prosperity.
Yet, despite the soaring rate of female entrepreneurs, women still face steep obstacles to starting, owning, and growing their businesses.
We must ensure women entrepreneurs have access to capital, access to networks and mentors, and access to equitable laws.
“In developing countries, 70 percent of women-owned small and medium-sized businesses are denied access to capital. The result has been a nearly $300 billion dollar annual credit deficit for women entrepreneurs in the developing world”, Ivanka informed.
In the United States, she said, a Harvard Business Review report found that investors ask men questions about their potential for gains whereas they ask women questions about their potential for loss. This could in part explain why women entrepreneurs received less than 3 percent of venture capital funding in 2016.
“We are working to reverse this trend. The U.S. Small Business Administration, for example, increased its lending to women by over $500 million dollars this year alone” .