KUALA LUMPUR: The Professional Training and Education for Growing Entrepreneurs (Protege) reach-out and awareness programme by government-linked companies (GLCs) has benefited 24,385 youths as of September 2019, says the Entrepreneur Development Ministry.
The ministry on the Parliament website today said the programme, a collaboration among industry, agencies and universities nationwide, has enhanced interest among youth, students and graduates in entrepreneurship to make it the main career choice after graduation.
“In addition, under the graduate entrepreneur financing programme (PPUS), RM30.64 million worth of financing was provided to 1,506 graduate entrepreneurs while 456 entrepreneurs received financing under the Young Agropreneur Programme (PAM) worth RM17.12 million as of August 2019,” it said.
The ministry was replying to a question from Datuk Seri Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim (BN-Baling) on the status of the National Entrepreneurship Policy 2030 and its impact on the country’s young Bumiputera entrepreneurs.
It said 34,790 young Bumiputera entrepreneurs have been produced under the Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre’s (MaGIC) special programmes to meet the needs of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, from the ideation, prototyping and commercialisation stages to market expansion in Asean.
“Entrepreneur development under MaGIC covers various types of entrepreneurship including social enterprises,” it said, adding the Bumiputera Budding Youth Entrepreneurship (TUBE) programme introduced in 2014 has trained 4,380 Bumiputera youths and created 9,955 jobs.
“The programme also underwent rationalisation and enhancement with the participation of Orang Asli and differently-abled persons in order to expand inclusivity and raise the community’s standards of living,” it added. — Bernama
