Women in Business

This in itself is a great achievement, according to founder Janet Sape, noting the customers are mostly grassroot women.

“These women are unbanked. They have their money with them in their bags and they cannot access banking services because they don’t know how to,” she said.

Janet is also the founder of the Women in Business, a body that has been actively driving financial literacy among the women population.

“We try to meet and network with the women and try to help, empower them grow,” she said.

But despite these gains, we’re still our own worst enemies when it comes to money.

According to a recent report by the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, women who work full-time earn nearly $11,000 less per year than men, which adds up to almost half a million dollars over the course of a career. Women earn 79 percent of what a man earns.

 At this year’s fourth annual Forbes Women’s Summit, we shone a spotlight on women who prove otherwise. Here are how some of them redefine power:

The women participated in the Beginners Entrepreneurship Workshops aimed to improve skills in sales, marketing, business planning, savings and loans and human resource management.

They were joined by 28 men, making a total of 53 participants, of which 19 were youth.

During the opening of the business workshop, Australian High Commission First Secretary Simon Roz said the training encouraged the participants to tap into opportunities and grow their businesses.

However, Freddy Viribi, a local business man from Oro, told Loop PNG that many people were just spectators.

"Most people who are coming to the expo are mere spectators and  do not want to buy our product."

He said one of the reasons was the K2 gate fees charged.

 He said not many people were coming to the expo during weekdays but flocked in during weekends.

Viribi is selling Oro design caps, shirts and bags. He said so far his caps were “selling like hot cakes’’ which were always bought by tourists. The expo started last Friday.