Abrar Hossain Sayem
- The Small and Medium-scale industries are considered as a promising sector to eradicate poverty through the creation of new employment opportunities and thereby addressing the significant portion of SDGs. This sector was making a praiseworthy contribution in achieving economic growth through encouraging expanding business activities and taking part in earning foreign exchange.
There are 7.8 Million (780,00,000) micro, small and medium industrial entities in Bangladesh with 25% contribution to the GDP of Bangladesh. Of them, 93.6 percent are small and 6.4 percent are medium. According to the National Industrial Policy-2016, in manufacturing category, a small enterprise is defined as having 31 to 120 employees and investing Tk75 lakh to 15 crore excluding land and factory building. In manufacturing, medium industry/enterprise is defined as an industry which invests Tk15 crore to Tk50 crore and employs 121 to 300 people.
SMEs now occupy an important position in the national economy. They account for about 45 percent of manufacturing value addition, about 80 percent of industrial employment, about 90 percent of total industrial units and about 25 percent of the labor force. Their total contribution to export earnings varies from 75 percent to 80 percent. The industrial sector makes up 31 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP), most of which is coming from SMEs.
A study conducted by Mohammad Saleh Jahur, a professor of Accounting and Finance at Chittagong University, in 2018, found that the contribution of SMEs to the GDP is only 20.25% in Bangladesh. Compared to that, in India, it stands at 80%, 60% in China, and 69.50% in Japan. The scenario is no different in the overall number of enterprises. The share of SMEs in all enterprises is 80% in Bangladesh whereas it is 97.60% in India, 99% in China and 99.70% in Japan. Bangladesh lags significantly behind largely because of the external and internal challenges facing the SMEs.
But this is to be improved and is the most promising hope to keep the growth of Bangladesh in achieving our target. The Cabinet approved in principle the draft of SME Policy 2019 to boost the industry and increase its contribution to the GDP up to 32 percent by 2024 from the existing 25 percent. Aligning with the mission to develop the SME industry, Merchant Bay Ltd. is working on increasing global market presence of these SMEs of Bangladesh in the manufacturing sector. Core objective of Merchant Bay Ltd. is to find new markets and make export order management easier for the SMEs of Bangladesh both in Apparel and Non-Apparel Industries. Due to Covid-19 strike, our SMEs are hit hard, struggling to survive, we at Merchant Bay are working remotely with even more effort now to serve our mission, which is to stand beside them. The current world will face many shifts in business and economy, Bangladesh can take this as a golden opportunity to grow into a better sourcing destination for both Apparel and Non- Apparel industries, we must stay prepared.
A study conducted by the Daily Star in 2019 found that 55.71% of SMEs suffer due to lack of knowledge about how to market their products. By 2022, Merchant Bay Ltd aims to bring this percentage down below 10%.
Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are treated as the engines of growth and drivers of innovation worldwide. They play a significant role in country's accelerated industrialization and economic growth, employment generation and poverty reduction. In Bangladesh, the sector was actually changing the face of the economy, we can not let it suffer now. After the Global Recession hit due to the Covid-19, SME sustainability and growth is a critical area of focus that we should address, our duty is to work hand in hand to keep the sector alive, bring innovation and re-work our strategies. A key strategy here will be to study redefined global demand and identify emerging export market.
About 60 to 65 percent of all SMEs are located outside the metropolitan areas of Dhaka and Chittagong. This shows a scope of decentralized growth which can reduce density burden over our metropolitan cities. Merchant Bay Ltd. is working to bring Trading Partners from all 64 districts of Bangladesh to facilitate the SMEs in all areas into its global platform.
With the mission to boost the SME manufacturing sector of the country, Merchant Bay team is working tirelessly to create the first ever Search Engine for Manufacturing Industry of Bangladesh and develop SAAS based tools to help manufacturers operate better by lowering cost and increasing productivity. With over 1000 apparel SME suppliers verified and enlisted in our platform, we will now be enlisting Non-Apparel SMEs too from the industry like Agro, Dry Foods, Cane and Wooden Furnitures, Jute and more. We expect to launch our advance search engine tool and intelligent order management dashboard by June 2020.
https://www.banglanews24.com/business/article/79716/SME-Policy-2019-for-entrepreneurs-okayed
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