SME Foundation, BFTI join hands to promote SME growth

The SME Foundation and the Bangladesh Foreign Trade Institute (BFTI) will collaborate to support the growth of small and medium-sized business owners.

Anwar Hossain Chowdhury, managing director of the SME Foundation, and Dr. Saif Uddin Ahammad, chief executive officer of BFTI, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in this respect at the SME Foundation headquarters.

SME Foundation Chairperson Md. Mushfiqur Rahman, General Manager Md. Abdus Salam Sardar, Deputy General Managers Mousumi Roy and Muhammad Morshed Alam, and BFTI Joint Director Ahsanul Islam were present at the function.

Trade facilitation for CMSME entrepreneurs, export diversification, joint research on LDC graduation preparation, entrepreneur training and skill development, policy assistance and dialogue, and information sharing are among the areas in which the two organizations will collaborate under the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding.

According to Md. Mushfiqur Rahman, Chairperson of the SME Foundation, the MoU would support the implementation of programs aimed at boosting and facilitating the export of CMSME goods. Additionally, he said that over 11.8 million CMSME entrepreneurs already operate in the nation, with 70% of them located outside of Dhaka, according to the preliminary findings of the most recent Economic Survey.

However, due to manpower constraints and the absence of field offices outside Dhaka, the foundation implements various entrepreneurship development programmes through public and private organisations, local administrations, SME chamber associations, and non-government development organisations.

It is notable that under SME Foundation’s credit wholesaling operations and the government’s stimulus package, loans totalling over Tk1,000 crore have been disbursed to around 11,000 entrepreneurs across the country through partner banks and financial institutions. In addition, the foundation has supported entrepreneurs in enhancing their access to finance through various programmes with banks and financial institutions, with women entrepreneurs accounting for 25% of the beneficiaries. Currently, the SME sector contributes nearly 30% to Bangladesh’s economy.