Last Sunday's two expositions of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) --one at Chittagong and the other at Rangpur -- have brought the importance of increased participation of women in the country's business enterprises into a sharp focus. The fairs put on display a wide variety of products their SMEs had manufactured to meet demands both at home and abroad. The two fairs brought home the fact that new women entrepreneurs in the SME sector are coming up in an increasing number with their ventures, taking on myriad challenges to work in a male-dominated, competitive and complex economic and business environment.
The role of SMEs in facilitating faster economic growth can hardly be overemphasised in an overpopulated country like Bangladesh. As SMEs are mostly labour-intensive, these have the capacity to employ millions of unemployed people, both males and females. Such industrial units also produce some import-substituting products. Some SMEs today have even made their mark in overseas export markets as well. It indeed augurs well for future sustainable growth of the economy through SMEs. The country's decision-makers have also started, of late, encouraging more and more women SME entrepreneurs, taking into account the fact that females constitute more than half of its population. The commerce minister, while opening the Chittagong fair, announced Tk 1.0 billion loan for women entrepreneurs. Also at the initiative of the Bangladesh Bank, the banking sector lent Tk 3.95 billion to 3,317 new women entrepreneurs in the past one year, the number being 5.0 per cent of the total new SME borrowers.
The government has thus set policies to put it on the right track, considering the need for furthering the cause of women entrepreneurship in SMEs. There is no denying that personal initiatives have so far greatly propelled growth of women entrepreneurship. As surveys say, women entrepreneurs at present constitute less than 10 per cent of the total business entrepreneurs in Bangladesh; in advanced market economies, women however own more than 25 per cent of all businesses. Despite this, the women's entrepreneurship in Bangladesh has improved living the conditions of women in such businesses and earned more respect for them in their family and society. Such entrepreneurs have also contributed to business and export growth, supplies, employment generation, productivity and skill development. Establishment of women entrepreneurs' enterprises has started growing, albeit at a slower pace.
Today, women in rural areas are either self-employed or employed in family-based enterprises that include both agricultural and non-agricultural sectors. Such activities that include homestead agriculture, livestock and poultry rearing, fish farming, nursery and tree plantation, tool and fish net making, food processing, tailoring and rice processing have been regular and invisible sources for supplementation of family income. The campaign for increased role of women in running SMEs has thus yielded some encouraging results. Women entrepreneurs in both urban and rural areas of Bangladesh are now helping to turn the situation into an area of crucial progress in national development. Notwithstanding the current level of substantial participation of women in the off-house activities, they however are yet to assume a dominant role in mainstream economic activities. If proper measures are taken to remove impediments, the SMEs, owned/managed by women, will certainly trigger an economic breakthrough and accelerate economic growth.
Women entrepreneurs in SMEs
FE Team | Published: November 15, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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