Majlis Amanah Rakyat (Mara) will launch a retail entrepreneurship programme in March to boost Bumiputera real estate ownership in urban areas, said Entrepreneur Development and Cooperative Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin.

He said the programme was aimed at achieving the government’s target of increasing the Bumiputera’s real estate ownership from 11 per cent to 30 per cent by 2020.

Mara aimed at producing 20,000 Bumiputera retailers besides 11,000 skilled entrepreneurs and 10,000 micro-enterprise entrepreneurs by 2010, he told reporters after opening Mara shophouses and handing the state-level Mara entrepreneur awards (Aura) here today.

He said Mara would identify entrepreneurs who had succeeded in operating retail networks to open their doors to other Bumiputeras.

“The successful Bumiputeras could be anchors in the business for others to take part in retail trading,” he said, adding that Mara so far identified 45 types of retail trading which could be expanded including those selling clothing, electrical appliances and jewelleries.

He said Mara was also collaborating with Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) to develop business parks at the campus and a housing area, both in Bangi, Selangor to house Bumiputera retailers.

Khaled said the ministry was also ready to develop business parks in other states provided the state government allotted sites for the project.

–BERNAMA

This entry was posted on Monday, January 29th, 2007 at 1:15 pm and is filed under Real Estate. Tags: development Labor Malaysia MIP Real Estate real estate owners retail retail entrepreneur State Government . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.