SME Foundation, Visa sign MOU for entrepreneurs

Staff Reporter :

The SME Foundation and global payment technology company Visa will collaborate to support six areas, including capacity building of SME entrepreneurs, financing, market linkage, and marketing, receiving government incentives in digital mode, policy support, and capacity building of resource persons for entrepreneurship development.
According to a press release, Managing Director Anwar Hossain Chowdhury, on behalf of SME Foundation, and Jason Dongseuk Lee, Head of Business Planning and Implementation for Government Institutions in the Asia Pacific region, signed the memorandum of understanding on behalf of Visa yesterday.
Anwar Hossain Chowdhury, managing director of SME Foundation, said that since its inception, more than half of the SME entrepreneurs who have benefited from nearly 2 million beneficiaries through almost 4,500 programs of SME Foundation are women.
At this time, more than 11,000 beneficiaries of about 5500 programs of the foundation to increase the skills of entrepreneurs in the information and communication technology sector.
Besides, about 130,000 SME entrepreneurs have taken the services of 8 digital platforms of the foundation. Under the MoU, at least 5 lakh small and medium entrepreneurs will be served in the next 3 years.
Currently, the contribution of the SME sector to the economy of Bangladesh is 32 percent. The latest Economic Survey of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics says that there are more than 7.8 lakh cottage, micro, small, and medium (CMSME) industrial enterprises in the country, which is more than 99 percent of the total industrial enterprises. About 85 percent of the total employment in the industrial sector is in the SME sector. About two and a half crore more manpower is working in this sector.