Encouraging women entrepreneurship in India, Prime Minister Modi gave a rousing speech to kickoff the Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2017 (GES) on Tuesday. Held in South Asia for the first time, the GES 2017, had a theme of ‘Women First, Prosperity for All’. “This event not only connects the Silicon Valley with Hyderabad but also showcases the close ties between the US and India. It underlines our shared commitment towards encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation,” Modi said.

Ivanka Trump, daughter and special advisor to U.S President Donald Trump spoke at the event, saying
globally, female entrepreneurship had seen an increase of 10 percent between 2014and 2016.
Modi said the empowerment of women and encouragement of women entrepreneurship is
essential to the nation’s development.
Today, there is an annual credit debt of around $300 billion in relation to female entrepreneurs
in developing countries because 70 percent small and medium businesses owned and led by
women in developing countries today are unable to or denied access to raising or receiving
funding.

“If India closes the labour-force gender gap by half, your economy could grow by over $150
billion in the next three years,” Trump said citing the GES being held in India as symbolic of the
partnership between India and the U.S.
Topics for the summit included healthcare and life sciences, digital economy and financial
technology, energy and infrastructure, and media and entertainment.
According the World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index, India have moved up 19 spots, from
54th to 35th, between 2014 and 2016, which is descriptive of the ease in which goods can be
exported and imported in the country. “We have succeeded in containing the fiscal and current account deficits and curbing inflation,” Modi said. “Our foreign exchange reserves have crossed $400 billion, and we continue to attract large foreign capital flows.”

According to Trump, women-owned companies have increased by 45 percent, within the last
ten years in the U.S., with eight out of ten being owned by minority women. This has led to
women entrepreneurs having a presence of 11 million, proving 9 million people with
employments and bringing in profits of over $1 trillion. However, even with the increase in the role of women entrepreneurs in recent years, less than 3 percent of female entrepreneurs gained venture capital funding in 2016.

“We are working to reverse this trend. The US Small Business Administration, for example,
increased its lending to women by over $500 million this year alone,” Trump said.
Other attendees of the Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2017 include leading investors,
entrepreneurs, academics and think tanks, among others.

(Picture courtesy: LiveMint)