Micro and small entrepreneurs in different parts of the country will gradually get access to technology-based manufacturing as an autonomous body mulls over installing common facility centres there.
This was disclosed at the opening ceremony of the first common facility centre installed by the Small and Medium Enterprise Foundation (SMEF) in Rajshahi's Kaluhati footwear cluster on Friday.
State minister for foreign affairs Md Shahriar Alam opened the centre as the chief guest at a programme with SMEF chairperson Dr Masudur Rahman in the chair, reads a statement.
SMEF managing director Mafizur Rahman, additional industries secretary SM Alam and Rajshahi deputy commissioner Shameem Ahmed, among others, were present there.
This facility centre is expected to help shoemakers in the cluster get affordable technology, enhance their production and profitability, diversify products and make their entrepreneurship more sustainable.
According to the National Industrial Policy 2022, an industrial cluster is a combination of 50 or more similar small, medium, micro or large industries located within its 5.0-kilometre radius.
The cluster creates backward or forward linkage to manufacture similar types of merchandise, defines the policy.
Kaluhati is one of such clusters for footwear-making ventures in the same-name village under Charghat dub-district of Rajshahi.
The first common facility centre at Kaluhati comprises 13 state-of-the-art machines.
The footwear cluster began to evolve in the eighties, later creating employments for around 7,000 people.
The SMEF will gradually install similar facility centre in other clusters across the country following the success of the first one.
The foundation is implementing multiple programmes in 40 clusters for their further expansion.
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