Sales, orders fetch nearly Tk 32cr

Entrepreneurs sold products worth Tk 12.15 crore and bagged orders for goods involving Tk 19.36 crore at the 10th National Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Fair that ended yesterday.

Participants say visitors in large numbers came to the 10-day fair, organised by the SME Foundation at the Bangabandhu International Conference Centre in Dhaka, after it began on November 24.

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"Initially sales were low but it picked up as the fair progressed. Both sales and order rose three times compared to the last year. All in all, we are quite happy," said Esrat Jahan Chowdhury, managing director of Tulika Eco Limited, a jute goods manufacturer.

She said in the previous fairs, visitors did not want to buy expensive jute products. "The situation was different this time. Many visitors bought expensive products."

Mafizur Rahman, managing director of the SME Foundation, described the fair as successful.

"It has been good for entrepreneurs. Both sales and orders increased compared to last time."

Some 350 stalls were set up to display products of 325 firms that took part in the event. Some 130 were from the fashion design sector. In addition, food and agro-processing, handicraft, leather, jute, ICT, light engineering and plastic product makers participated.

Seminars were organised on easy financing, women entrepreneurship, technology, ICT and cluster development for SME entrepreneurs.

The SME Foundation has been organising the fair since 2012 to promote SME products as cottage, micro, small-and-medium enterprises account for nearly a fourth of Bangladesh's gross domestic product.

There are roughly 10 lakh SMEs and 68 lakh cottage industries in the country.