Govt to be persuaded to ease business for women: Minister

FE Team | Published: December 22, 2011 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

FE Report State Minister for Women and Children Affairs Dr Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury Wednesday assured the business community of the country of persuading the government for relaxing the existing provision about bank loans for ensuring greater access to capital of woman entrepreneurs in the small and medium industries. "We have to look into whether the number of paper documents can be reduced in case of practical problems so that our woman entrepreneurs can have easy access to finance," said the minister. "Besides, Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) and different woman chambers can specifically point out the problems where change is needed. Thereby, the Federation and women affairs ministry can work from their own place," she added. Shirin Sharmin said this while addressing a seminar on 'Woman Entrepreneurs in SMEs: Bangladesh Perspective' as the chief guest at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre in the city on the sidelines of the five-day SME Fair 2011. FBCCI president AK Azad, First Vice-President Jashim Uddin, Bangladesh Bank Deputy Governor Abul Kashem, FBCCI Vice President Mostofa Azad Chowdhury, Bangladesh Samll and Cottage Industries Corporation (BSCIC) chief of Industrial Management Faculty Bilkis Begum and Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission Deputy Director Mahbooba Panna also spoke, among others, on the occasion. FBCCI Director Monowara Hakim Ali moderated the seminar while Yeameen Akbory, Deputy Project Director, Bangladesh Economic Growth Project, Ministry of Commerce, presented the keynote paper on the theme. Shirin Sharmin stressed the need for relaxation of regulatory procedure like tax, VAT and company registration process for woman entrepreneurs and making them more women-friendly. "Also the banks need to go beyond lending by helping woman entrepreneurs in preparation of a proposal and documentation process for getting loan," she said. "Woman entrepreneurs often complain about some of the columns of the regulatory forms as difficult, problem in getting trade licence, TIN and others. It is necessary to have specific advocacy on these issues," she said. The minister also stressed the need for training on accounting, bookkeeping, ICT and e-commerce for woman entrepreneurs to keep them updated and enhance their skills alongside the open institutional services for them. In her presentation Ms Akbory said family still remains the major challenge in developing woman entrepreneurs in the country combined with backbiting, harassment by transport workers, non-cooperation of the religious leaders and insecurity. Besides, business capital, marketing, distribution, raw materials, lack of skilled workforce, training, bribing in trade licence process and unfair treatment to woman entrepreneurs in case of participation at trade fairs are also problems for woman entrepreneurs. AK Azad said it is a right of the entrepreneurs to get fair price of their products and the state and the FBCCI need to ensure it. He said many land grabbers have occupied large areas of khas land of the government which need to be retrieved. "Once the government reclaims the land we will build infrastructure for the woman entrepreneurs where the Federation will take the charge of selling the products of woman entrepreneurs." Mostofa Azad said there are only 10 million women in the total 50.3 million labour force and there are only two per cent woman entrepreneurs among the total entrepreneurs in the country. He said according to the new trade rules which are in the making there will be divisional chambers as well as district-level woman entrepreneurs' wings where the woman entrepreneurs will communicate if they are interested in business. Former FBCCI director Masuda M Rashid said despite the banks' claim to the contrary the reality is that woman entrepreneurs do not get loan as the banks say they do not know her. Besides, they face problems in getting trade licence, get harassed by middlemen while marketing their products and get in trouble by the transport people while transporting their goods from one place to other. "They need security in these processes," she said. Abul Kashem said the various difficulties for woman entrepreneurs are solely created by the society. "Bangladesh Bank wants financial inclusion," he said, adding, "all the local and foreign banks are now more interested in SME loans as they are less risky than big loans."