THE government will be allocating RM235 million to encourage more women to increase their business capacity and improve marketing strategies, said Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz.  

In tabling Budget 2023 today, the finance minister said the funds would be made available under various schemes such as Semarak-Nita BSN, Tekunita TEKUN, DanaNITA MARA, and Biz Lady Bank Rakyat. 

Tengku Zafrul said that as of October 2022, women represented 29% of the board of directors in the top 100 publicly listed companies. 

He said that to continue empowering the role of women at the leadership and corporate level, the Securities Commission would introduce a training programme to improve their skills in order to identify and further increase the number of women eligible to be appointed as board members. 

“I believe that political parties are also actively identifying and looking to nominate more women representatives for the next general election.” 

He added that to encourage more women to return to work after taking a career break, the government planned to give an exemption on income tax for the assessment year 2023 to 2028. – October 7, 2022.