UNVEILING a fresh wave of incentives for small businesses, President Dr. Irfaan Ali, last week, announced that over 1,000 women trained under the Women Innovation and Investment Network (WIIN) programme will soon be transitioned to entrepreneurship.

Speaking at the opening of GuyExpo 2025, President Ali explained that the forthcoming initiative will be further detailed in the government’s fiscal package for 2026, along will several other incentives to stimulate growth for small businesses.

“We’re going to announce a special initiative with the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security that will convert more than 1,000 women we train under the WIIN, the original and only WIIN programme that will convert over 1,000 women into entrepreneurs,” President Ali said.

This initiative he stressed will see greater support for women-led enterprises, empowering them to not only be contributors to the economy, but also build sustainable livelihoods.

“When you hear that announcement, the boldness of that announcement, not following anyone, but creating our own path to prosperity,” he emphasised.

It was reported that during the first half of 2025, government advanced the training programmes earmarked for empowerment of both women and men. In this regard, 6,189 persons, including 4,077 women, completed training through the WIIN programme which was first introduced in 2021.

The programme has since been expanded to offer training to men as well.

AGRO-BUSINESSES

As part of the wider push to strengthen the agricultural sector, President Ali also unveiled a series of aggressive incentives to stimulate investment in agro-businesses.

He confirmed that the government intends to introduce a taxation framework that will apply a zero per cent rate on all agricultural, veterinary, and agro-processing inputs that fall within the existing trade system.

“We will pursue a taxation system, as I said, that will see zero per cent on all agriculture, veterinary input and agro-processing input within existing trade framework,” he said adding:

“We’ll have special incentive for agro-processing and agri-value chain investment, special incentive for large scale cold storage facility, special incentives and a graduated corporate tax regime for agro processing by level of turnover, which will be defined in the 2026 budget.”

A new, graduated corporate tax regime for agro-processors based on turnover will be defined in the 2026 national budget to provide additional support.

According to President Ali, the structure will be designed so that small and medium-sized enterprises in the agri-business ecosystem pay little to no corporate tax. This, he noted, is intended to encourage more businesses to register formally, comply with tax requirements, and benefit from government assistance.

“This system will be graduated to the extent that small and medium-size enterprises in the agri-business ecosystem would see close to zero or zero in corporate tax,” he said adding,

“This will incentivise our agriculture businesses to- be to register themselves so they’re not afraid of the taxation system, so they become compliant. So, we can help them to build their standards, and we can help them to adopt the values; a value system that will give them access to regional and international markets.”