Home ›› 07 Mar 2022 ›› News
Fairs organised by the Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation (BSCIC) helped small businesses recover from the Covid-19 fallout as they had good sales and received orders on the spot from wholesalers.
BSCIC held 11 fairs to showcase products from the Cottage, Micro, and Small Medium Enterprises (CMSMEs) in the current fiscal year. At those events, the CMSME entrepreneurs sold products worth Tk 7.33 crore till February of FY22, data from the corporation revealed.
Twenty-five fairs were organised in FY21, which brought in Tk 11.77 crore. These figures indicate that the CMSME sector has successfully tackled the Covid-19 fallout thanks to the fairs organised by the BSCIC.
BSCIC has also organised 93 virtual fairs due to the Covid from where entrepreneurs sold goods worth Tk 5.53 crore during July-September and Tk 3.87 crore during May-June last year.
However, male entrepreneurs gave the cold shoulder to the virtual fairs, but a lot of female entrepreneurs participated. According to BSCIC’s evaluation, about three participants among every four were women in the virtual fairs.
The same situation reemerged in the on-site fairs too. The participation of female entrepreneurs increased by 17.5 per cent in FY 2021-22 compared to FY 2020-21.
During BSCIC’s 11 on-site fairs in FY22, women entrepreneurs had 44.9 per cent of the total stalls aiming to enhance their business. Besides, in FY21, female entrepreneurs had installed 533 of 1372 stalls marking 38.84 per cent of the total allotment of BSCIC’s physical fairs.
Owner of Dream Handicraft, Rehana Yeasmin said “I have attended BCICS’s all Dhaka based fairs in 2021 and three others in 2020. To me, fairs create an opportunity to hike the selling of my products.
“In one of the fairs I sold all leather bag productions and struggled to meet the increasing demand of buyers.”
Snigdha Datta, owner of Shyampur based Rong Bangla Boutique, said “I am trying to attend all of the fairs organised for CMSMEs, but mainly I’m waiting to join BSCIC’s fairs for gaining more outcomes.
“Previously, I have gained more connection with the wholesalers during the fairs organised by BSCIC, and got more orders too.”
Meanwhile, another entrepreneur Md Kamal, who owns a cottage industry-based BSCIC industrial city in Pirojpur, said, “I had attended an SME fair in 2021 but received a lackluster response from the visitors, which kept me away from attending other SME fairs anymore.”
BSCIC organised 16 fairs after withdrawal of the countrywide Covid-19 restrictions in October last year. Among them, 5 were held in the capital and the rest in 7 districts. During 11 fairs out of 16, entrepreneurs got orders worth Tk 4.94 crore alongside the selling of CMSMEs goods.
In 2020-21 FY, 25 fairs were organised on-site by the corporation between October of 2020 and April of 2021 while 8 of them were held at its head office in the capital’s Motijheel and Uttara and SCITI, and the rest were held in 17 districts. In those expos, entrepreneurs received orders worth Tk 4 crore and 44,000.
Women entrepreneurs act as driving force
When the CMSMEs sector was slowing down and entrepreneurs’ hopes were flickering due to Covid-19 restrictions and lockdown, the country’s women entrepreneurs showed their supremacy over men and drove the sector ahead smoothly.
The data presented by BSCIC showed that women entrepreneurs have installed 70.6 per cent (3315 stalls) of the 4699 stalls allocations in the virtual fairs organised by the BSCIC in July-September 2021.
In previous virtual fairs organised amid Covid concern, the women entrepreneurs had 1,484 stalls out of 2090 stalls in May to June of 2021 marking 71 per cent.
Experts for bridging gap between CMSMEs, market
Although the BSCIC is gradually enhancing the quality of the fairs that has developed the sector incredibly, more challenges exist in CMSMEs to expand the sector, said Dr Khondaker Golam Moazzem, research director at the Centre for Policy Dialogue.
He added, “The BSCIC has to reduce the gap between entrepreneurs and buyers at the national and global levels. Most of the time, the initiators fail to compete in the market due to a shortage of links.
“If necessary, the steps should be taken under this corporation to build a bridge with private marketing-ad farms that would help their business at the marketing level. At the same time, it should be export-oriented and BSCIC can help to create the opportunity to produce global standard products.”
With the Export Promotion Bureau, BSCIC should help the stalls installation of CMSMEs in the internal fairs at a reduced price or at free of cost, he said, adding “Our neighboring country India has a facility to subsidize the CMSMEs to expose in fairs.”
