SABINA'S one person-led sun cap factory has made it big -- from a scratch. Driven by the sheer motivation to start up an enterprise of her own, she has managed to climb the steep stairway to a viable business concern with a rising export profile. Her caps made up of garment wastes are in demand in neighbouring India and Nepal. It won't be long before she achieves a humble niche in other countries because of the low, affordable cost of her products.

Quick to shed her worker status in a garment unit, but drawing upon her rudimentary know-how about the trade, she set up her tiny factory with a sprinkling of micro credit in 2003. Within five years, her hard work and persistent efforts, undeterred by constraints inherent in a male-dominated society, have rewarded her hugely, and the community immensely for being a reference point in the legacy of successes her breed of enterprising women have already created for their peers.

The Daily Star as a staunch believer in the value of recognising business talent and entrepreneurial creativity and bravado, felicitates the Citi Foundation of the Citigroup and Shakti Foundation for Disadvantaged Women for distributing laurels in four categories of micro-entrepreneurship.

The noticeable private sector trend in bringing up the microcredit success stories for social and professional recognition by way of encouraging more of it is a healthy one. Yet, so long as this is not complemented by the government's facilitating growth of marketing network, reliable energy supplies and a dose of fiscal incentives to the small exporters, the full potential of the microcredit sector would remain untapped.

The major benefits derivable from microentrepreneurship are employment generation, women's empowerment and poverty alleviation. Besides, what is of overarching value is that it is not only worthy of replication but also well within our means to replicate it.