Reeta Simha might not be a household name but in the world of business she is a force to be reckoned with. With 26 years of experience in crafting hand-woven Pashmina, Allo, and Dhaka products, Simha believes a businessperson should have a specific dream, clear goals and vision, and determination to work hard if he/she is to succeed in life. “You must believe the sky’s your limit and continue working despite the outcome,” she says.
Currently the second vice president of Federation of Women Entrepreneurs’ Associations Nepal (FWEAN), Simha is a successful businesswoman who owns Aama Impex, a company popular for its excellent pashmina and products made from allo and dhaka. With the brand name ‘Aama’, these products are also marketed in the European nations.
“The real objective behind starting Aama Impex was to promote Nepali raw materials and handcrafted goods in the global market,” says Simha adding that she has, to a large extent, succeeded in doing so, and she is proud of that fact.
The idea for Aama Impex came when Simha was working for a project organized by Asian Health Foundation (AHF). She was traveling to Myagdi district where she saw women being trained to weave scarves from natural fibers.
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Today, she exports those hand-knitted scarves to foreign countries. Simha has also been successful in bringing raw allo from eastern Nepal and has workers craft items from it whereas the required materials for pashmina come from the remote areas of Mustang.
“I had visited Mustang once and was astonished to see the quality of threads used to make pashmina,” she says. She found out that these fine raw materials used to get exported to neighboring countries and later would get imported in the form of manufactured goods along with a price hike.
This led her to think of an idea of setting up an organization in Nepal itself so that the local raw materials would get a decent market and the country’s revenue would increase as well.
For this, she collaborated with the Nepal Government, International Trade Centre and Pashmina Enhancement and Trade Support and started a brand called ‘Chyagra Pashmina’ with its own logo, which has been running effectively since its establishment. Within four years of its establishment, Simha’s commitment to her work took the company to great heights when it became the first ever company to export large quantity of pashmina abroad.
However, starting a business is never easy and Simha recalls the difficulties she faced during the initial days. Due to absence of skilled manpower and proper innovations, it was almost impossible for her to complete the orders she received.
“Technology had made things so easy today. You can communicate with dealers overseas anytime with just a few taps on your phones,” she says while talking about how difficult it was to contact her dealers when she started out.
But even today she feels startups could do much better if they received adequate support from the government.
“ The government should introduce industry friendly policies if the culture of startups is to flourish,” she says adding that establishing a company is a quite risky and complicated process in Nepal but if it were made a bit easier many people would be encouraged to work in Nepal instead of going abroad. “There will be dozens of creative companies here which will definitely be good for the economic development of the nation,” she says.
It is with this hope that the business sector in Nepal will get bigger and better with time that Simha keeps working hard to grow as a businessperson. But, for woman entrepreneurs in our society, she feels family support is imperative. “And I’m fortunate enough to have a very supportive family,” she concludes.
