Goldman Sachs says 10,000 women funded under its prog added Rs 2,800 cr to Indian economy

Mumbai: Goldman Sachs, which has funded the business and management education of 10,000 women in India, has claimed these beneficiaries have helped create around 12,000 new jobs as well as add Rs 2,800 crore in revenues to the country's economy in the past 18 months.

The investment banking major first launched the graduation programme in the country in 2008. It relaunched the same 18 months ago when it claims to have funded the business and management education of 10,000 women under its 'Womeninitiative'.

The numbers, it said, are based on a study carried out by the Indian School of Business (ISB) among 2,400 of these 10,000 women entrepreneurs who participated in Goldman Sachs women initiative.

The study found that these 10,000 women have doubled their existing workforce, quadrupled their revenue, and increased their productivity by five times on an average, within 18 months of graduating from the programme and most of them expect to increase hiring and grow revenue.

Sonjoy Chatterjee, chairman and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs India, said women entrepreneurs are still significantly under represented in the country and face significant hurdles to access capital, which means there is more work to be done to unlock their true potential.

He said only 20 per cent of the domestic businesses are led by women, and they contribute just 3 per cent of the overall industrial output.

The study has analysed how women entrepreneurs are implementing what they have learned from the programme and how they seek to benefit from the emerging growth themes.

These include digital technology adoption to drive innovation and efficiency; boosting exporting and tapping into a globally competitive talent pool for growth.

Since 2014, when it launched the women entrepreneurs opportunity facility in a global partnership with the International Finance Corporation, more than 38,000 women entrepreneurs have received over 45,900 loans worth around USD 720 million through the programme as of December 2021.

Globally the facility has reached over 1,64,000 women entrepreneurs who were provided over USD 4.5 billion in loans via financial institutions across 55 countries.