A team from the Japan International Cooperation Agency has made its second visit to National Incubation Center Sialkot, this time with Chiyo Mamiya, Chief Advisor of the Women Entrepreneurs Booster Package project, who visited the facility for the first time. Under the project, the team spoke briefly with the startups incubated at the centre and recorded testimonials from its female founders. The aim was to gain a grounded, firsthand understanding of the challenges that women entrepreneurs in Sialkot face, based on what they say about their own businesses.
By helping with this ground level data collection, the incubator says it helped identify strategic areas of support and collaboration between the agency and the local business ecosystem. The testimonials give the project team evidence from founders who run technology and service businesses in the city, rather than from surveys alone, and they can shape what the project offers women in Sialkot. The incubator said it will continue to enable and facilitate initiatives that drive the ecosystem forward alongside international supporters such as the agency.
The Women Entrepreneurs Booster Package is part of a five year project run by the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority with the agency, which covers 2026 to 2030 and focuses on women entrepreneurs in the informal economy. It was formally launched in Lahore on 30 April 2026 and will be piloted in Lahore and Sialkot, with a target of reaching 2,000 women and transgender entrepreneurs across Punjab over five years. Priority sectors include information technology, services, textiles, sports goods, furniture and surgical instruments, and the package is meant to build financial and digital skills, improve access to credit and markets, and help businesses grow and move into the formal economy. The project will also draw up a strategy for taking the package to more women across Punjab and other regions.
National Incubation Center Sialkot was set up through an agreement between Ignite National Technology Fund, which operates under the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication, and a consortium led by Mobilink Bank that includes CyberVision International. Sialkot is known for sports goods, surgical instruments and leather products, and the incubator offers technology startups in the city mentorship, investor links and business development support. The visit puts the centre in direct contact with a project that is likely to shape how women entrepreneurs in the city are supported in the coming years.
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