Business Initiative Leading Development (BUILD) discussed the undertakings of SME Development Working Committee (SMEDWC) in a meeting with Secretary in-charge, Ministry of Industries (MOI) recently.
Abdul Halim, Secretary in-charge, MOI, and Ferdaus Ara Begum, CEO of BUILD, led the respective sides in the meeting, said a statement.
The meeting also put light on improved coordination of SME/SMCI development through SMEDWC under the Technical Assistance (TA) to BSCIC Component of the European Union (EU) funded programme “Poverty Reduction through Inclusive and Sustainable Markets (PRISM)”.
“BUILD is happy to collaborate with the TA Component of PRISM for the coordination and support. A sub-working group with a number of public and private institutions may work on a specific agenda,” said BUILD CEO.
Earlier, BUILD CEO made a presentation informing the activities held so far under the SMEDWC and requested the Secretary for holding the next meeting in early quarter of 2019.
“We are moving to yield result-oriented works rather than the process-oriented works followed earlier since SMEs are needed to know about the global changes and in this respect proper global model should be given to them for addressing the change of demand in coming years,” the meeting was told.
The Secretary in-charge, MOI, endorsed the proposal of engaging BUILD to support the co-ordination activities routed through SMEDWC and agreed for need assessment workshops to understand the emerging need of SME/SMCI.
Echoing the voice of the secretary for extending real support for cluster-based activities, Ali Sabet , Team Leader of the TA Component of PRISM elaborated further on the proposed collaboration with BUILD for the improved coordination of SME/SMCI development.
Ali Sabet, Project Coordinator, PRISM TA project, Md. Mahbubur Rahman, Joint Secretary, MOI and Project Director of PRISM programme, Faruque Ahmed, Deputy Chief (Current Charge) Planning-3, MOI and Mehruna Chowdhury, Gender Consultant and Research Associate of BUILD were present in the meeting.
-rmc//