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Arba Minch, June 4th 2013: While welcoming guests and participants to the symposium, Dr. Arvind Bhat promised that there is an interesting second and concluding day awaits everyone in terms of presentation and knowledge.  Mr. Abedom G/Michael of Mekelle University presented his paper on factors affecting the performance of Women entrepreneurs in Micro and Smal Enterprises in Tigray Region and said that entrepreneurs are movers, shakers and pillars of economic growth.  Women entrepreneurs, he stated, are remarkable and he had analysed 14 male owned and 5 women owned enterprises.  He came to the sad conclusion that women entrepreneurs perform below remarkable level and these women organize, operate and create formal enterprises like men do.

 

Various factors both internal and external  to gauge performance were taken into account and cross sectional survey research was conducted along with analyzing secondary data.  141 respondents have been surveyed  and descriptive as well as inferential statistics, regression analysis were used.  It was found out that majority of women were in 31-40 age group and 42% of them were married, educated to 9 -10th std, comprising 28.73% Average family size was about 4 and 10% had diplomas, 4.4% were Mekelle Women entrepreneurs Association members.   The source of finance came from family assistance, 32.6% and unemployment, 51.4% , was the main reason for starting business.   Most of these enterprises had 1-5 employees and small number of these firms  had 6-30 employees and about half or more them got their return on investment. Mr. Abedom said that both internal and external factors are responsible for this performance and government as well as others should encourage women entrepreneurs strongly.

Mr. Taye Tadese of Makelle  University, in his presentation on Determinants of Insurance Companies Profitability in Ethiopia: The Case of Selected Private Insurance companies said that without insurance companies current businesses are unsustainable.  He started with defining insurance and has said that this component, is a social entity, contributing substantial to the national economy.   Ethiopian insurance industry is under developed having only 0.3 million insurance clients with 0.1% of Ethiopian population having access to insurance services, contributing 0.58% to country’s GDP.  There were 14 insurance companies, 221 branches and 955.1 million as registered capital.   Insurance promoted capital market in Ethiopia and too broad spectrum of classes of insurance affect profitability.  There has been fluctuation in profits and this was investigated and using panel method as well as quantitative and qualitative methods were used.  He suggested raising equity capital in issuing  new shares to potential and existing  clients in the end.

The seminar witnessed one more presentation on Leadership  styles and employee commitment in private Higher Educations by Mr. Temesgen Teshome who underlined various leadership styles and their efficacy.  This interesting seminar will witness panel presentations and summation besides certificates distribution and recreational visit to Crocodile ranch followed by farewell dinner at Omo Lounge.