WOMEN-OWNED micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) face a financing gap of an estimated $200million to $250million, driven by limited collateral, smaller average loan sizes and restricted access to digital payments and formal financial channels.
Women Entrepreneurs Business Council (WEBC) chairperson Jyoti Maharaj made the revelation in her welcome address at the opening session of the two-day 2026 Women Invigorating the Nation (WIN) Convention that got underway at the GPH in Suva yesterday.
Ms Maharaj said as of December 30 last year, more than 12,000 women-led businesses had accessed financing in the past three years, as women now made up 23.6 per cent of Fiji’s registered MSME.
She said finance existed but not always in forms that matched the real journey of an emerging business – procurement pathways were nominally open but designed in practice for incumbents.
Market access, she added was available but the requirements had been built for established players, and not for enterprises that were still finding their footing.
“Women are building businesses across Fiji but too often at the smallest scale, with the least capital and continue to access less than a fraction of available formal credit, face greater barriers to markets and remain underrepresented in leadership and board positions across sectors,” Ms Maharaj said.
“And yet, despite all of that, they show up. They innovate. They employ. They feed families, sustain communities and build economies from the ground up.”
She said women in Fiji comprised 49.3 per cent of the population, but only represented nine per cent in parliament, 21 per cent in boardrooms and 19 per cent in business ownership.
“The World Bank tells us that when women participate equally in the economy, global GDP could rise by as much as 26 per cent,” she said.
Alluding to the convention’s theme ‘Given to gain: Investing in women, transform our future’, Ms Maharaj said: “When we say, ‘give to gain’, we are saying give women access, give women opportunity, give women trust and watch what they give back to this nation.
“That is not a theory. That is what is sitting in this room right now.”
