Bahrain labour fund Tamkeen held the first of four scheduled workshops as part of its efforts to share its current and planned projects with the public.

It also reviewed plans to further develop these programmes to meet market challenges, reported the Gulf Daily News, our sister publication.

The workshop, which focused on businesses, was attended by more than 100 business owners, entrepreneurs, managers, and community leaders from a wide range of sectors.

Tamkeen chief executive Mahmood Al Kooheji welcomed the efforts of participants from different backgrounds in providing valuable opinions as well as insights. He also emphasised the importance of co-operation and collaboration in order to enhance the growth of Bahraini individuals and businesses in the private sector.

"At Tamkeen, we continuously strive to provide the private sector with different programmes and initiatives that supply critical support to business owners and Bahraini individuals," said Al Kooheji.

"The participants in the workshop today played a key role in relaying constructive feedback regarding the challenges that business owners currently face and the solutions necessary in order to overcome these challenges.

"This feedback will be integrated to be a part of our future plans and will allow us to more accurately gauge needs and provide a roadmap for the programmes that we intend to launch to support the private sector."

The main issues outlined by the participants were long application and approval processes to benefit from the support programmes, recruiting qualified Bahraini employees, providing more training opportunities for both employees and employers, and promoting innovation and manufacturing.

In order to fulfil those needs, the participants provided some suggestions which included enabling online application, providing programmes to support export activities and international trade, providing more flexible and customised training solutions, increasing support amount through the Enterprise Development Support schemes, in addition to allowing beneficiaries to pool the support amount and control how much of this fund is allocated to each scheme.

Suggestions also included providing more support programmes to innovators and entrepreneurs as well as having Tamkeen enter as a partner or investor in select ventures with different sectors.

The second workshop, being held today, will focus on the workforce in Bahrain. Participants will discuss the main challenges and put forth their recommendations to Tamkeen.-TradeArabia News Service