Over 865 female entrepreneurs will be able to take part in 167 domestic fairs in 2009 free of charge thanks to a TOBB-sponsored projectFemale entrepreneurs will be able to participate for free in domestic business fairs held in 2009 in an effort to boost the number of women in business and increase their role in the Turkish economy. A press conference promoting the project was held Wednesday in Ankara with the participation of Rıfat Hisarcıklıoğlu, the president of the Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodities Exchanges, or TOBB, Aynur Bektaş, the chairwoman of the Women Entrepreneurs Committee of TOBB, and other female entrepreneurs from different regions in Turkey. “We can't be a part of the contemporary world if we can't make progress on the participation of women in the labor market. So we want to support female entrepreneurs through projects that aim to make them an asset to their countries,” said Hisarcıklıoğlu, speaking at the meeting. While women at the meeting complained about the lack of marketing opportunities for displaying and selling their products, the new project, titled “Female Entrepreneurship Support and Participation in Domestic Fairs,” will help them access the market and pave the way for women to display and sell their products in domestic fairs free of charge. Some 865 entrepreneurs will be able to take part in 167 of Turkey's most important fairs free of charge next year thanks to a TOBB-sponsored project with a budget of YTL 2.5 million. Five entrepreneurs will be provided with 15 square meters each, along with stands to display their products in each of the 167 fairs. To benefit from the project, the entrepreneurs will need to apply to the Women Entrepreneurs Committees in the provinces where they live or to the chambers of commerce and industry. Female entrepreneurs demand more opportunity The launch of the project also marks the first anniversary of the establishment of the Female Entrepreneurs Committees, another TOBB-sponsored initiative launched in October 2007 in an effort to provide financial support and training to women in business. Within a year the committees were already established in 73 provinces, and TOBB plans to expand it to 81 provinces. The chairwomen of the Female Entrepreneurs Committees, meanwhile, said the projects had already proved successful and also expressed her desire to create further marketing opportunities for women. “The projects provided us with economic freedom. We had no childcare centers in the industrial zone of our province for instance. Now work is under way, thanks to the establishment of the female entrepreneurs committee in the city,” Serpil Karuserci, Gaziantep Female Entrepreneurs Committee chairwoman, told the Turkish Daily News. Nilüfer Baran, chairwoman of the Diyarbakır branch of the Female Entrepreneurs Committee, said they established a workshop in which women could produce their products, increasing the number of workbenches from six to 15 throughout the province and raising productivity to 1,000 pieces per month. “However, we still face a problem marketing them. We already sell them to NGOs and some big companies, but we should ensure sustainability. Therefore, we need more marketing opportunities,” she said. According to official reports, there are 72,000 female entrepreneurs in Turkey. Only 25 percent of women actively participate in the workforce, one of the lowest rates among OECD countries. Turkish Daily News