Representative of the IEC Tehnopolis, Jelena Gagovic attended yesterday a round table in the Chamber of Economy on the topic “Youth Entrepreneurship: Challenges and Opportunities”. This event was organized by the National Partnership for Entrepreneurial Learning in cooperation with the Ministry of Finance and the United Nations System.
The round table was opened by Mladen Perazic, head of the education sector at the Chamber of Economy, who said that more efforts should be made in Montenegro to promote entrepreneurship, because the economic reality is such that small businesses and employment programs will often be imposed as the only solution.
“The close cooperation between the academic and business community and with a common insight into common goals should train workers that are able to successfully valor individual skills in the direction of entrepreneurship development”, said Perazic.
General Director of the Directorate for Financial System and Business Environment Improvement at the Ministry of Finance, Bojana Boskovic, said that organizing such round tables shows readiness to consider the key challenges of citizens and the Montenegrin economy as well as the global labor market.
“In the framework of potential efforts and strategies for strengthening employment and creating new jobs for young people, entrepreneurship is positioning itself as an increasingly accepted way of solving the problem”, Bošković said.
The UN System Coordinator in Montenegro, Fiona McCluney, said the focus of this round table was to support young people to self-employment and to have their own businesses, providing them with the opportunity to grow and encourage them to learn through the process.
“Several reports have shown that more than half of young people would rather work for themselves than for employers, and more than a third saw entrepreneurship as their way,” added McCluney.
According to her, young people see numerous challenges that make development difficult, such as lack of access to finance, aggravating business procedures, lack of skills or the ability to communicate with relevant institutions.
The discussion was concluded with the message that the focus of entrepreneurship development should be on the development of entrepreneurial competencies, not on the establishment of companies per se.
