Awards found their winners in the Largest Women’s Entrepreneurship Competition in Turkey. Over three years, 220,00 women entrepreneurs received TL 58.5 billion (approx. EUR 1.7 billion).
Halkbank in Turkey rewarded women who contribute to the entrepreneurship ecosystem with new business ideas and models with the “Productive Women Competition”, which it organized for the third time this year. Speaking at the award ceremony, Osman Arslan, General Manager at Halbank, stated that they increased the annual average turnover of the women entrepreneurs they providing loan support by 66%, their export volumes by 56%, and additional employment to 75,000 people.
Stating that they support women operating in many sectors from manufacturing to industry, from education to tourism, from fashion design to software development, to increase their assets in the field of technology and export, Osman Arslan said that they provide financing to technology-based women entrepreneurs with the Techno Entrepreneur Support Loan and Technocity Support Package. He mentioned that they would provide resources to them with the Growing Women Exporter Support Package that the Bank is preparing to launch.
Export and results
“The average annual turnover of our women entrepreneurs, to whom we have provided loan support to date, increased by 66% and their export volume by 56%,” – Osman Arslan added.
“From 2021 until today, we have provided TL 58.5 billion (approx. EUR 1.7 billion) of financial support to 220,000 women entrepreneurs from different professional groups. We finance approximately 50% of women entrepreneur loans granted in the sector. We aim to increase the number of our women entrepreneurs, whose success story we share, to 250,000 by the end of 2024,” – he said.
The entrepreneurship ecosystem redefined
“Unlike previous years, we added a special category for our women entrepreneurs operating in the field of technology. We also launched the Productive Women Academy Master Class Training Program, which we designed to enable our women entrepreneurs to transform their business ideas into innovation. Our entrepreneurial women, who were among the top 100 in the competition, gained valuable information on many subjects, from brand creation and sustainability to social media strategies, from online commerce and marketing techniques to personal style, from our valuable mentors and consultancy jury members,” – Osman Arslan said.
Categories and awards
Various cash awards were awarded in the “Productive Woman Entrepreneur of the Year”, “Technology-Based Woman Entrepreneur”, “Woman’s Cooperative”, “Zero Waste”, and “Rising Star” categories.
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Source: the Bank’s press release dated March 05, 2024
