State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak on Sunday said the participation of young entrepreneurs in F-commerce (Facebook commerce) is on the rise significantly.
"At least 400,000 new entrepreneurs are engaged in F-commerce. Bangladesh Bank is going to arrange small loans at 4.0 per cent interest for the entrepreneurs who are engaged in F-commerce and Startup business," he said at a virtual conference.
The e-Commerce Association of Bangladesh (e-CAB) arranged the virtual conference on Rural to Global E-commerce Policy Conference. LGRD and Cooperatives Minister Tazul Islam inaugurated the event.
Palak also highlighted different initiatives taken by the government for e-commerce and its entrepreneurs in the first session of the conference.
The LGRD minister said people are choosing e-commerce to sell and purchase goods, from food to luxurious products. "Though it (e-commerce) began small, now a sort of dependency (on e-commerce) has been created," he said.
Addressing the function, Senior Secretary of Commerce Ministry Dr Jafar Uddin said the commerce ministry has formed a digital commerce cell to implement the digital commerce policy.
"The work is on to finalise the digital commerce operation guidelines 2021. We keep the matter of inclusion of social media commerce entrepreneurs in the guideline under the consideration of the Commerce Ministry," he said.
Chief executive officer of Bangladesh Foreign Trade Institute (BFTI) Obaidul Azam, deputy governor of Bangladesh Abu Farah Md Nasser and Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) Syed Almas Kabir, among others, spoke at the conference presided over by e-CAB president Shomi Kaiser, said a press release.