Speakers at a seminar on Thursday stressed the need for involving more women in entrepreneurial activities to empower them socially, economically and culturally.
They said women's role as entrepreneur should be diversified through a shift from traditional handicraft and poultry rearing to mainstream industrial manufacturing, service and education sector.
The seminar titled 'Women Entrepreneurs: Breaking the Barriers' was held at a city hotel, organised by Women Entrepreneurs Association of Bangladesh (WEAB) in association with Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation (BSCIC) and European Union-funded PRISM Programme.
Industries Minister Amir Hossain Amu addressed the programme as the chief guest while it was also attended by industries secretary Muhammad Abdullah, BSCIC chairman Mustak Hassan Md Iftekhar, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) senior research fellow Dr Nazneen Ahmed and WEAB president Nasreen Fatema Awal.
Terming Bangladesh one of the role models in the field of women empowerment, the minister said, "We have made notable progress in empowering women with a view to achieving the targets of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).''
He said the central bank has set a target to provide nearly Tk 1.04 billion to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the current fiscal, which will be disbursed through state-owned banks, private Banks and other non-banking financial institutions.
Mentioning that SME Foundation has selected 177 clusters across the country to provide trainings to industrial entrepreneurs, Amu said the foundation has been offering easy and collateral-free loans to women entrepreneurs with trainings on entrepreneurial skills, product diversification and market linkage.
He also said women entrepreneurs have been given priority in the allotment of industrial plots in BSCIC industrial areas for long and they will also get plots in the planned economic zones and industrial parks.
The minister also mentioned that due to the government's multi-dimensional initiatives, over a million SME entrepreneurs were created in the country who contribute 23 per cent to the GDP and account for 80 per cent of industrial jobs.
Delivering the welcome address, Fatema Awal said that traditionally, women entrepreneurs in the country are mostly engaged in agro-based businesses like cottage industry, handicraft, stitching and embroidery, and poultry and dairy farming.
For further empowerment of women, they should be engaged in mainstream production lines such as garments manufacturing, artificial jewellery manufacturing, supplying dry and fresh flowers to hotels and restaurants, large-scale food catering, establishing educational institutions and setting up trendy fashion houses, she added.
Speaking at the programme, Dr Nazneen said as of 2013, there are a total of 7.81 million entrepreneurs in the country, 7.2 million of which are male entrepreneurs and only 0.56 million are women.
Among all the entrepreneurs of the country, only 7.21 per cent are women, she added.
Moderated by Bangladesh Enterprise Institute (BEI) president Farooq Sobhan, the programme was also attended by Asia Foundation country director Sara Leigh Taylor and Dhaka University Professor Dr Momtaz Uddin Ahmed.
