Papua New Guinea does not have a profile for all women who are operating their own businesses.
But with the APEC/ Policy Partnership on Women and the Economy, this data is important.
A series of activities are currently on-going in the county, to gather this information, like the PPWE workshop and expo.
These exercises are carried out by the Department for community development and religion in partnership with Small and Medium Enterprises Corporation (SMEC).
A survey was conducted in April 2017, for the NCD area, but was halted after facing shortage of fund.
Nevertheless, SMEC is calling out to women entrepreneurs to come forward to fill the survey form.
This survey forms part of the information to present to APEC in PPWE workshop group meetings and the statistics form the nutshell of what the country wants to achieve in terms of women empowerment.
So far, only 30 women have been profiled in this survey, out of which 7 business are in line with APEC’s aim to promote tradition and culture.
This first survey also identifies that more businesses are informal and hope to help the women entrepreneurs transition their business into the formal sector.
SMEC is of view that collaboration will push the agenda of women and hopes that more people get on board to continue it.
A tentative program for profiling rollout to other provinces is in place, beginning in May this year.
This should be finalised by end of this year.