Dr Obinna Nwogwugwu, the South-East Director of Nigerian Youth Chamber of Commerce, says the organisation has empowered more than 3,000 youths in the zone since August 2015.
Nwoguwgwu said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Aba on the sidelines of the Aba Entrepreneurship Summit held on Saturday.
“These youths have accessed one form of loan or the other through our financial partners.
“In this summit, our target is to raise about 100 business owners. That is why we have our partners here.
“We have the Bank of Industry, Bank of Agriculture, Heritage Bank, and the CBN. They are here to tell them how to access the funds’’, he said.
He said that since the inauguration of the organisation’s “Decade Campaign’’, the chamber had been sensitising the youth to the opportunities open to them in entrepreneurship.
The director said that the summit was one of such programmes meant to reach out to the youths to enable them to harness the opportunities to become employers of labour.
Nwogwugwu said that although many of the youths saw lack of finance as a hindrance to becoming successful entrepreneurs, their major challenge was lack of knowledge of their business needs.
He said that apart from helping them source funds for their businesses, the chamber was also assisting them in writing acceptable business plans which would guide them in their businesses.
The director said the chamber was eager to assist any person between the ages of 18 and 60 year who was willing to own a business.