National Handicraft Program (Bari) and National Commercial Bank (NCB) have signed an agreement to provide training to low-income group women artisans in the Kingdom and support their efforts toward the empowerment.

The breakthrough agreement toward women empowerment in the Kingdom was signed at a ceremony on the sidelines of the 37th board of directors meeting of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA) at the headquarters in Riyadh recently.

It was signed by SCTA President Prince Sultan bin Salman, who is also the head of the supervising committee for Brai, and NCB Chairman Mansour Al-Maiman.

A Bari official told Arab News on Friday that it aims to fund small handicraft projects for female artisans, as well as help create marketing outlets to sell their handicraft products, which will not only assist the low-income group female artisans but will also help in woman empowerment in the long term.

Moreover, the agreement aims to foster cooperation efforts between the two parties to allocate required funds for handicraft small projects.

"Bari will provide the technical advice on handicraft while NCB will provide concessional loans for funding the handicraft small projects in line with their Productive Family Program, the NCB official said.

He added that as per the agreement, NCB is required to train women artisans of low-income group in handicrafts with the best training providers in the Kingdom and in accordance with the strategy of NCB’s productive family program.

In addition to designing proper training programs, the agreement will ensure high quality production and allow their access to countrywide trade bazaars and exhibitions, and link them in proper coordination to global markets and trading centers, he added.