Record sales at SME Fair despite low visitors turnout

The 9th National SME Fair 2021 witnessed Tk 10 crore sales surpassing all previous records, said SME Foundation Managing director Md Mofizul Rahman.

He made the remarks while speaking at the closing ceremony of the fair at the Bangabandhu International Conference on Sunday. Mofizul said that the participants in this year’s fair have also secured orders of goods worth Tk 17 crore.

Industries Minister Nurul Majid Mahmud Humayun, State Minister of Industries Kamal Ahmed Majumder also attended the closing ceremony with SME Foundation Chairperson Md Masudur Rahman in the chair.

The speakers hoped that the products of small and cottage industries would enter the export market soon. Despite record-breaking sales at the fair, many entrepreneurs expressed their dissatisfaction over the volume of sales.

Some entrepreneurs said that they have to incur loss this year because of a very thin crowd at the fair for bad weather and lack of publicity while some have decided to not attend the fair in the future as they seem it a “loss project”.

Sharmin Ferdous Lina, the proprietor of Surma Hasthashilpa, said that sales were very poor compared to their expectation. “I have participated in the fair 6 times and every year we could sell nearly Tk 3 lakh but this time I sold only Tk 1 lakh. I will not attend the fair next time. The government is offering subsidies in many sectors but ignoring the SME sector which is mostly dominated by women,” she said.

A transgender entrepreneur, Israt Jahan Toma said, “We could not sell anything for two days because of bad weather. I waited till the end of the fair to have a good sale. But nothing happened. The products which we can sell at Tk 2,500 online, visitors want the same product here at only Tk 1,000. I don’t think I will participate in the fair next time,” she said.

Shamim Akhtar, a silk saree producer and seller, said that the fair could not fulfil half of their expectations. “We the Bengalis love fair but the participation of visitors were very poor in this fare for lack of publicity. We expected a sale of at least Tk 50 thousand a day but it did not go above Tk 20 thousand,” she added.

Some entrepreneurs, however, were satisfied over the sale at this fair.

Mariam Nargis, President of Jessore Nakshi Katha Association, said that they could manage to sell more than their expectations. “We could sell more than Tk 1 lakh in per day as we offer products at a lesser price. We could not sell so much in the past several fairs,” she said.