Professional Documents
Culture Documents
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Definition of SME
SME means Small and Medium Enterprises. There is no common acceptable definition
of SME that has been applied world wide. The definition of SME varies from one country to
another and even within the same country. So, there is a definitional ambiguity in cases of
SMEs in Bangladesh. Different organizations define it according to their objectives and
conveniences. However, the amount of capital investment and the number of workers
employed are the two major criteria of defining SME. More than 90% of the industrial
enterprises in Bangladesh are in the SME size-class, i.e. with up to 100 employees.
Generally, SMEs are labor intensive with relatively low capital intensity.
Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have drawn a lot of interest among the policy
makers, academics, businessmen and people in general. There is a broad consensus that a
vibrant SME sector is one of the principal driving forces in the development of the economy
of Bangladesh. SMEs stimulate private ownership and entrepreneurial skills and can adapt
quickly to changing market situation, generate employment, help diversifying economic
activities, and make a significant contribution to export and trade.
2. OBJECTIVES
2.1 Objective of the study
The present study focuses on the current scenario of woman entrepreneurs in manufacturing
sectors in SME and problems faced by them in Bangladesh as well as suggest some policies
and recommendations. The specific objectives of the study are to:
1. Primary Objective:
Analyze the current status of woman entrepreneurs in Bangladesh;
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The recent available estimation obtained from two major micro surveys, International
Consulting Group (ICG) study and South Asia Enterprise Development Facility (SEDF)
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As regards manufacturing SMEs (10-99 workers), the Economic Census 2001 & 2003
indicate that there are nearly 28 thousand small and medium manufacturing establishments
employingsome 644 thousand persons? In the 10+ size group, manufacturing SMEs account
for nearly 88%of the manufacturing establishments while this is about 29% of manufacturing
employment.
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Women enterprises are small in size. Short-term loans were more widely used than medium
term loans, which had an average size of Tk. 3 lakh. The average interest rate was 13%,
ranging from 10% to 14 %. Loan giving process discriminates against women. The average
time required for an SME to process loan was 57 days, while for women enterprises it took
145 days. Debt financing has yet to deeply penetrate womenled enterprises (Bangladesh
Bureau of Statistics, 2007).
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The function of MIDAS, mediator between the two groups is to closely supervise and
monitor the two groups and provide them with necessary technical support, guidance&etc.
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Sonali Bank is the pioneer bank which opened a few women branches in the country to
promote saving habit of women. It initiated a project named Credit for Urban Women Micro
Enterprise Development which offered loan between Tk 50 thousand to two lakh without
collateral. To be eligible for loan, viability of the project, hypothecation and a personal
guarantee were the necessary requirements. The formalities were considered to be difficult
for women and the amount was too small to establish a small enterprise.
Janata Bank has good facilities in providing collateral free loans up to Tk 5 lakh, but these
are available only in Dhaka.
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organize
women
entrepreneur
conference,
national
SME
women
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numerical predominance of the SMEs in Bangladeshs industrial sector becomes visible in all
available sources of statistics on them. (Ahmed, M.U 2001)
The various categories of SMEs are reported to contribute between 80 to 85 percent of
industrial employment and 23 percent of total civilian employment (SEDF, 2003).
While the SMEs are characteristically highly diverse and heterogeneous, their traditional
dominance is in a few industrial sub-sectors such as food, textiles and light engineering and
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2. Creating self-reliance:
Nowadays women are engaged in difference field of work. They are doing official
work, engaging in a new business, creating new sectors for employment and so on.
As they are earning money by doing those types of business so they are now selfreliance.
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2. Reducing poverty:
Women entrepreneurs are creating new sectors for more earning. As they are earning
more and creating more job opportunities thats increase our national income. As a
result they are playing a vital role in reducing poverty.
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through
development
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and
financial
also
contribution,
raise
consciousness
providing assistance to
in
family
on
womens
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15.2 NahidaSharmin:
Nahida Shrmin the entrepreneur and proprietor of Sholpik Crafts. She won of Best
Woman Entrepreneur Award 2009 from FBCCI. Her business in to design and
manufacture dress on Block, Print and Carchupi. Age of her business is 15 years. She
has completed her BFA and MFA from Fine Art, University of Dhaka. Now she is one
of the best designers in our country.
15.3 MS Hasina Begum:
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Like these entrepreneurs we have meet with 20 women entrepreneurs and they have given us
necessary information about themselves and organizations. They are developing gradually
but they had to face some financial and social constraints that needed to be solved to run their
business well. Some of those can be solved by the initiative of Govt. and the others can be
solved by the awareness development of the people. We got some message for the concerned
department to get them facilitate to reach their product home and abroad.
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formal financial institutions and depended on own savings and family as source of
capital to start a business (Chowdhury, Farzana, 2008).
3. Unwillingness of the Banks:
Banking system is not adequately focused on women-owned enterprises. Banks
usually consider women entrepreneurs in SME to be high-risk borrowers. The kind of
collateral usually considered by banks as appropriate security is land and building.
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9. Marketing problem:
Most of the women entrepreneurs are non-business graduate and many of them are
educated under HSC thats why they have very few knowledge and opportunity for
proper marketing. As small and medium business they have very few budgets for the
marketing.
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entrepreneurship
business
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community,
endorsed
by
government,
educational
institutions,
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13. CONCLUSIO N
The economic development of a country is not possible without proper participation of
women into the main stream of economic development. Now, it is the demand of time to
make the women as an economic change agent. Development programs could not bring
women in the main stream of economic development because they failed to include women
as an equal partner of men. Women fall in dilemma between their personal advancement and
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