LAHORE - The All Pakistan Business Forum (APBF) has appreciated the valuable initiative taken by the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) of launching a nationwide Intensive Business Clinics (IBC), with the objective of helping aspiring entrepreneurs to set up new businesses or to help their existing ones progress faster.

APBF President Ibrahim Qureshi offered support to this initiative and stated, “This initiative taken by the UNIDO is a great step towards the progress of Pakistani youth. This exercise will go a long way in improving the quality of business models and in equipping the young entrepreneurs with much needed skills, knowledge, and information, for nurturing entrepreneurship venture, while developing productive linkages with technical experts.

In the initial phase, UNIDO carried out an IBC in Lahore, which provided training to small/medium entrepreneurs and start-up businesses, who qualified as semi-finalists under the Global CleanTech Innovation Programme (GCIP) Call for Awards 2017. In the first week of October, a similar IBC will be organised in Islamabad, whereas the UNIDO would be carrying out another IBC in Karachi soon. The GCIP is currently being run in 12 countries including Pakistan, and its main focus is towards fostering the promising and viable clean-technology start-ups to fuel green industrial growth, whereby empowering the SME’s with training, guidance, and access to potential investors.

With an intention to support comprehensive and sustainable industrial development, UNIDO has partnered with the Global Environment Facility (GEF) to tackle the concurring global environmental challenges. UNIDO seeks to promote scalable and affordable solutions which will enable numerous countries to achieve a better and more resilient economy.