“Bangladesh is now on its journey towards achieving SDGs by 2030, becoming a developing country by 2041 and a prospecting delta", said Industries Minister Nurul Majid Mahmud Humayun on Friday.
He said in order to build a sustainable Bangladesh, it is important that we join our hands together. These visions cannot be achieved without collaboration and partnership.
“The launch of REVIVE project aims to facilitate in creating an effective and enabling business environment for CMSMEs as a part of joint collaboration between ICE Center and UNDP. In Bangladesh, we consider CMSMEs as driving force for our socio-economic development as this sector has created millions of employment opportunity,” he added.
He was addressing the launching ceremony of 'REVIVE', a project in partnership with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Bangladesh, on its 2nd anniversary celebration, organised by Creativity and Entrepreneurship (ICE) Center, University of Dhaka, on Thursday.
FBCCI President Sheikh Fazle Fahim and Van Nguyen, deputy resident representative of UNDP Bangladesh, were present as special guests at the programme.
While addressing, Sheikh Fazle Fahim, also a board member of ICE Center, cited the impact of Covid-19 on the economy and said, “Bangladesh government’s four key economic interventions prioritized government expenditure for money circulation, increasing banking liquidity, food aid to 45 million people, cash transfer to 5 million families, and most importantly Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s comprehensive Financial Stimulus Package of 12.1 billion USD under 19 categories targeted to extensively support businesses, exports, agriculture and informal sector including the marginalized communities.”
The objectives of the REVIVE project is to enable an effective business environment for Cottage, Micro, Small and Medium Entrepreneurs (CMSMEs) in Bangladesh.
The areas the project will be highlighting on are confidence building and advisory service, facilitating effective policy formulation, and strengthening the supply chain network.
He opined that despite all these measures, agriculture and CMSMEs disbursements are regrettable due to reluctance of the banks in standing by those in NGO loan space.
“The regulators have instruments for banks to follow the BB circulars many of which were done on weekends to ease people’s inconvenience. However, several bank MDs and DMDs have not even read it,” he said.
Fahim also mentioned that FBCCI, since February’20, sat in dialogues with stakeholders in home and abroad on stimulus recovery and sustaining economy. Besides, several social and philanthropic initiatives were also taken to aid front-liners and marginalized groups.
“FBCCI solicited a phase-wise response package that covered multiple socio-economic issues including supply chain, transport, logistics, production, import-export, supply of essential commodities etc. in addition to forming a sector wise council,” he said.
Van Nguyen, deputy resident representative of UNDP Bangladesh, talked about distressed women entrepreneurs affected by Covid-19 as 52% of CMSMEs closed and 28% showed a plummeting business during the lockdown.
Professor Md Akhtaruzzaman, Vice Chancellor of University of Dhaka, who chaired the programme, said, “Despite being the youngest center of the University of Dhaka, ICE Center has already proven its worth. Since its establishment in 2018, it has been playing very significant roles in innovation and entrepreneurship.”
