The 20th AGM of SME Foundation was held at the Parjatan Bhaban in Agargaon, Dhaka, on Monday. As many as 46,459 micro, small, and medium entrepreneurs were direct beneficiaries of various SME Foundation programmes last fiscal year, said Foundation's Chairperson and Industries Secretary Md. Obaidur Rahman.
The information was shared at the 20th Annual General Meeting (AGM) held at the Parjatan Bhaban in Agargaon, Dhaka, on Monday, says a press release.
He noted that of the entrepreneurs who received direct services in the 2024-25 fiscal year, 23,550 were men, 22,839 were women, and 70 were from the third-gender community.
Md. Nazim Hasan Sattar, Deputy Managing Director of the SME Foundation, delivered the welcome address.
At the meeting, Foundation's Managing Director, Anwar Hossain Chowdhury, presented various statistics on the programmes to the Board of Directors.
He stated that the SME Foundation implemented 656 programmes for the development of small and medium entrepreneurs during that period.
Notable among these achievements was the distribution of Tk 3.73 billion in low-interest loans among approximately 3,500 micro, small, and medium entrepreneurs.
It may be mentioned that the SME sector currently contributes approximately 30 per cent to the Bangladesh economy.
According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) Economic Census 2024, approximately 99 per cent of the country's 11.8 million industrial establishments fall under the Cottage, Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprise (CMSME) category.
Furthermore, the CMSME sector accounts for nearly 85 per cent of total employment within the industrial sector.
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