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MBABANE -The growth in youth-owned businesses in the country seems to be a priority for government and its stakeholders, as they have invested an excess of E11 million.

The Youth Enterprise Revolving Fund (YERF) has disbursed over E11 Million to support over 200 youthowned businesses locally, in line with YERF’s mission in being the leading and economically innovative empowering financial institution for the youth in Eswatini.

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This initiative has yielded positive results as more than 500 jobs have been create to date. These businesses are in a variety of fields including services, agriculture, ICT and more.

Minister of Sport Youth and Culture, Harris Bulunga yesterday said government join hands to help guide our young people towards creating sustainable livelihoods for themselves.

Bulunga said the government’s aim in funding these initiatives is to encourage and drive an entrepreneurial spirit among our youth. He said it is an area that government, through our ministry, has already invested in massively over the past few years, primarily through the Youth Enterprise Revolving Fund.

“Since its revival and first disbursement in 2019, the Youth Fund has disbursed about E11 million to support over 200 youth-owned businesses”, said the minister.

Bulunga also added that despite these successes, many more young people have applied and have not yet received funding, primarily due to poor business plans.

He said their business ideas are good and interesting but many young people lack the requisite skills to then is a challenging daily grid to tease your mind and test your ability with numbers.

JUST fiLL IN THE GRID SO THAT EVERY ROW, EVERY COLUMN AND EVERY 3X3 BOX CONTAINS THE DIGITS 1 THROUGH 9. THE NUMBERS DO NOT HAVE TO ADD UP TO ANYTHING.