Light engineering (LE) entrepreneurs sought Sunday necessary supports including availability of land, low-cost financing and setting up of a modern testing laboratory for further development of the industry.
The sector leaders also sought support for a training centre at a seminar on 'Producing Import Substitute Spares in Developing Light Engineering Industry' organised by SME Foundation in the city.
Industries Minister Amir Hossain Amu was present at the seminar as the chief guest while Mikio Hataeda, chief representative, JICA Bangladesh was the special guest. KM Habib Ullah and Dr Syed Ehsanul Karim, Chairman and Managing Director of the SME Foundation respectively, Abdur Razzak, president, Bangladesh Engineering Industry Owners Association (BEIOA) and Tetsuya Saito, senior volunteer, JICA were guests of honour.
Against demands made by the BEIOA president the minister gave assurance that his government is positive about development of the sector.
He said his government will try to allocate lands on the basis of zero pollution and zero accident for this sector.
The minister said along with the SME Foundation the government has another plan to support this mother industry which is producing spare parts worth more than Tk 100 billion as import substitute every year.
He said the government has already declared the LE as a thrust sector and the LE product exporters are enjoying a 10 per cent cash incentive.
Speakers at the seminar revealed that the SME Foundation refinancing scheme is helping the LE sector to grow through alignment of the workshops with match making, collateral free and easy institutional loan facilities in Dhaka and Bogra.
They informed that the government is positive about bringing the scattered LE workshops under SME financing across the country to produce high value added import substitute engineering products.
Until today more than 100 entrepreneurs have already been supported in cluster forms and many under different schemes through SME financing. With refinancing loan facilities the foundation has also helped set up metal testing labs, introduced MFL (Midas Financing Ltd) gear loan package and working as a match maker between the large industries and small light engineering workshops.
Midas, a leading leasing company, has devised the cluster based MLF-Gear scheme and they have already financed more than Tk 50 million under SME to various LE owners in Dhaka and Bogra.
Dr Syed Ehsanul Karim in his power point presentation has described the present LE scenario across the country and SME Foundation's contribution to the sector.
He said apart from the existing refinancing schemes they have sought for Tk 1.0 billion from the central bank.
Thanks to positive results from the existing cluster-based loans he emphasised introducing such schemes in large numbers by the banking and non-banking financial institutions.
He said investments are needed in metal testing, research and development, training and maintaining quality.
Mikio Hataeda said like readymade garments the LE as a mother industry could be one of the major export earning sectors of Bangladesh.
He said the LE workshops under SME facilities can produce high value added engineering products and spares and have already provided finance to more than 300 people and trained 8,000 people of whom 20 per cent are women.
Giving example of Toyota he said this car manufacturing company is world famous on the basis of more than 10,000 SMEs.
He said Japan's economy has grown through development of SMEs and Bangladesh does have such opportunities to grow by developing the light engineering sector.
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