SME DEVELOPMENT IN BANGLADESH

STRATEGIES and ISSUES

INTRODUCTION
Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have moved center-stage as a
major plank of Bangladeshs poverty reduction amid globalization.
. This has not happened without thoughtful and purposeful repositioning of policy mindset, service-delivery platform, skillsetupgrading and, above all, provisioning of political will. For the first
time, the Governments comprehensive Industrial Policy 2005
highlighted SMEs development as a flagship policy arena for balanced
and sustainable industrial development in the country.
Highlights of data with a national scope pertinent to characterizing
SMEs in Bangladesh as of 2005-2006 are as follows: (a) there are some
82,000 private-sector establishments with headcount of at least 10 in
Bangladesh with some 3.8 million workers employed in them. 1 The
urban Bangladesh accounts for some 60% of units and 76% of
employment in the private-sector enterprises.
Rural Bangladesh
accounts for the rest. 93.6% of all units in Bangladesh belong in the
SME category, i.e. have between 10 and 99 employees. However,
SMEs account for only 44% of the total employment of the enterprise
sector. The number of establishments with between 1 and 9 workers is
about 3.7 million. They account for some 14 million workers, working
mostly in rural areas.
Employment size averages 19 workers for the small category. The
corresponding average for the medium category is 66 workers. The
gap between small and medium category in terms of average size is by
more than a factor of three.
The small needs to be sharply
differentiated compared with the medium in terms of
intrinsic
vulnerability of the enterprise and the need for legitimate public
assistance. This has not been systematically done in policy discourses
in Bangladesh. The practice of putting small and medium enterprises
in the same category questionable, especially in the context of propoor development of SMEs in Bangladesh.
The Report of the SME
Taskforce---whence came forth the SME Policy Strategies 2005 --- is
an honourable exception to this.

BBS data on enterprises include some units under the sub-sectoral captions of public

administration and defence, for instance. Clearly, these units do not belong in the privatesector.

POLICY FRAMEWORK
The Industrial Policy-2005 states: "the SME sector has been given
priority as a privileged sector". The PRSP states: "The Government will
pursue an employment intensive industrialization with emphasis on
SMEs and export-oriented industries". The Government is committed
to spur industrialization led by the private sector amid a business
environment that can bring out the best among all SME stakeholders.
The Small and Medium Enterprise Cell (SMEC) was created in the
Ministry of Industries (MOI) in 2003, and was tasked to take specialist
interest in SMEs development. October 2003 saw the constitution of
the SME Taskforce (SMETF), with the Principal Secretary to the Prime
Minister as the convenor. The SMETF blended the Government, the
private sector, academia and the civil society as participants. The
Taskforces report was approved by the Government early in 2005.
Based completely on the contents of the report of the SME Taskforce,
the Government of Bangladesh issued, for the first time, Small &
Medium Enterprise Policy Strategies, 2005, to provide a framework for
interventions and policy strategies for the development of SMEs. The
Government constituted a Small & Medium Enterprise Advisory Panel
(SMEWP) as an independent and meritocratic brains-trust for the MOI
for all developmental, technical and structural advisories in the name
of SME development. The SMEAP was prestigiously headed and filled.
The Ministry of Industries remained very responsive to the SMEAP, and
the two have forged a real synergy in the interest of the development
of SMEs.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES
Certain framework principles fundamentally inform and inspire the
evolution of a growth strategy and action programs in the name of
SMEs development.
The need for a level playing field
Economic asymmetries---in access to information, market power, and
conduits of governance,
for example--- abound in all real-life
economies. These asymmetries fundamentally drive the emergence of
market failures. These failures price the small and the powerless out of
healthy survival, of growth. These failures tend to drive wedges
between the reach and the grasp of small producers. The weak and
vulnerable are also under-represented in the process of economic and
policy governance.
They bear the brunt of the downside of
government failures. Policy advocacy legitimized by high-quality
policy research and participatory discourses, including use the platform
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of Web-based dissemination technologies is a priority in empowering

small enterprises.
Women face many obstacles in starting and
operating businesses, which will be adequately addressed in order to
establish a level playing field for them and to face the challenges of
becoming entrepreneurs.
Technological and Quality Upgrading
Technological capability is a competitive differentiator of critical
importance. This is specially true when the world of production and
competition is a global village. China and India, especially China, is not
just attracting very large dollops of foreign direct investment but also
large and medium multinational companies who are eagerly
transferring proprietary technologies to China and then training up the
Chinese in using sometimes quite advanced technologies. That has
raised the bar quite significantly for the competition, including what is
a potential competition with a long-shot such as Bangladesh. This is
why technological upgrading is exhibit number 1 when it comes to
binding constraint. This is no longer a time for banal platitudes, of
the kind that many government and donor pronouncements are made
of. Nothing short of a very determined effort to draw level with,
sometimes even leap-frog, a deadly serious competition is called for.
Technology embraces (i) manufacturing process; (ii) product
functionality, durability and user convenience; (iii) product aesthetics;
and finally (iv) the aesthetics and environmental dimensions of product
packaging. Technology can-do that makes a difference thus is a
versatile and challenging package. Stanford University technology
historian Professor Nathan Rosenberg called science papyrocentric,
something that
loves publicity,
but technology papyrophobic,
something that loves anonymity.
Profitable technology demands
diligent digging and is inherently costly, because it is largely
proprietary. The market for proprietary resources is always prone to
imperfections, either because sellers have an insurmountable
informational advantage, or because demand, discouraged by high
prices characteristic of low initial volume, never picks up: a case of
information asymmetry again.
Asymmetries in access to credit
markets --- another permanent fixture of under-development --compounds the first problem. Plugging the competitive technological
gap afflicting especially small enterprises will require accent on (i)
attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) of the right kind; (ii)
negotiation of minimalist local-content guarantees through the Board
of Investment; (iii) scoping, and providing seed-money for, applied R &
D under the aegis of the SME Foundation and the DCCI, for instance;
(iv) determining requirements and funding for creating and/or
augmenting the infrastructure of R & D, to name the four that come to

the mind instantly. All of that will put a premium on deliberate,

resolute and informed public interventions, including public-private
partnerships, all executed cost-effectively and flawlessly. No doubt, in
discharging that mandate, catalysts and providers will all require
building of their own capacities, for conception, discovery and
implementation. Above all, political will, at all levels of governance --within the government, in the civil-society organizations, in the private
sector---will need to be stirred, marshaled and then aimed at this
binding constraint.
Technical universities, research institutions,
training institutions will
be better equipped and empowered to
strengthen their R&D profiles from the perspectives of potential private
sector adopters. The SME Web Portal will be leveraged up to the hilt
for this end. Institutional reforms in terms of sharing the risks and
returns to innovation between the private, often young,
inventors/innovators and civil-society organizations, using marketfriendly trade-off schemes will need to be experimented and then
gradually brought into the mainstream.
Access to Finance
SMEs do not have appropriate access to finance, particularly for longterm loans. Their needs can vary quizzically, defying standardization or
stereotypes. They could happily do with low interest rates. But they
could also still live with high interest rates, if high turnover of stocks
were to translate into a high return to investment. Fast and hasslesfree loan disbursement matters too, as does longer grace period in
loan repayment commencement. Of course, to them long-term loan on
low rates of interest is the best thing of all. SMEF will therefore be
quite diligent in assessing thoroughly SMEs credit and capital needs.
Small enterprises, if researched well to drill down into their most
pressing needs, and served right, can be bankable. It would be
inexpedient to suddenly open the flood-gates of cashflow-based
lending, although that must play a bit role too in any pro-poor lending
program. After many years of financing deprivation due largely to the
lack of collaterals, adopting cashflow-based lending as a flagship
channel would probably be going a bit over the top. Besides,
manufacturing is quite different from trade, in terms of credit needs.
This is mainly because the production process, the gestation, the reorder period, etc, all are very different.
SMEF proposes to harness
institutional
innovation(s)
to
extend
the
serviceability
of
collateralizable assets. It will seek to do so in an entirely marketfriendly manner. It has some important proprietary ideas, which it will
seek to use for the public good. One idea is to use a set of information
technology (IT)-enabled recognition systems to create a better creditguarantee scheme than has been around.
Financing should be made available to SMEs on a longer-term,
particularly for start-up operations and new investments.
The
4

Government is committed to encourage and assist the banking sector

to expand and strengthen their lending abilities to the SMEs. In this
respect, the Government will ensure that the available financing
schemes are effectively utilized for SME development and will also
assist commercial banks to undertake new and innovative financing
mechanisms (equity financing, factoring, risk capital) and strengthen
their capacity for lending to SMEs. Laws and regulations relating to the
improvement and enhancement of access to finance by the SMEs will
be reviewed and strengthened. A special monitoring unit will be set up
to oversee that the genuine credit needs of SMEs are fully met.
Access to Information
Information is a of great importance in a strategy to spur the growth of
SMEs. On the one hand, SMEs themselves have to count on their
extensive and ready access to information relating to all aspects of
business information, such as regulations, forms, procedures,
applicable fees, contacts, network organizations.
On the other,
efficient but propoor SMEs development put a premium on information
relevant to strategy, policy-advocacy and change management. While
the former is widely emphasized in meso-level best-practices of donors
involved in SME development work in Bangladesh, efforts in the second
area is conspicuous by its absence. SME Foundation will take its
mandate of policy advocacy seriously, and remain immersed in policy
research and the dissemination of that research, using the SMEWP.
SMEF will collaborate with business and trade organizations in setting
up sector-specific information and tool-kits for SMEs, helping with
building their capacities.
SMEF will also generate and publicly
distribute enterprise-level strategic and implementational information
that tends to otherwise be private in nature. This will include results of
assessment of profit start-up prospects in emerging industries, of
applied R & D work it will commission and, in general, offer investment
and technology counseling services.
Access to Markets
Marketing of products aimed mainly at domestic markets is of two
basic kinds: mass-markeing and niche marketing. Given their small
output scale, it is the niche marketing that closely corresponds to the
real concerns of SMEs. At the same time, export marketing is in a class
of its own. Each of the three is characterized by its own specific
requirements with respect to contacts, physical facilities, skills,
standardization, and regulatory culture. Because grading and
standardization in Bangladesh do not enjoy universal currency, for
many goods the customer simply will not buy in unless she has
physically examined this product. As retail space located accessibly is
very expensive in the major cities in Bangladesh, access to markets
shade off into the constraint of access to finance. Mail-order marketing

has never taken off in Bangladesh, for the same reason, namely, that
the customer will simply not buy in unless she has been able to
comparative shopping. There are no quick fixes when it comes to
increasing the market share of the SMEs, as their competitors happen
often to be much larger, better capitalized and better branded. The
SMEF will seek to have an impact by championing (i) a much more
available exchange of information; (ii) an ICT infrastructure that allows
a most cost-effective building of brands digitally; (iii) the gradual
building of shopping arcades that are strategically located where
admittedly a small proportion of the aspiring SMEs could be provided
with access; (iv) approaches that rely on the private sector for market
promotion through the creation of backward and forward linkages; and
(v) increasing capacities of private sector providers to sell high-quality
business development services in the area of product design,
packaging, after-sales services and building customer brands.
Market-based Development of SME
SMEF
is committed to SME development by encouraging and
promoting private sector led and market-based approaches to
economic growth, of course remaining vigilant as to the sometimes
disproportionally disruptive effects that market failures and policy
failures have on the SMEs. Market failures will be addressed first by
diagnosing the nature of the failure --- by a clean separation of supplyside from demand-side failures---and then by establishing a level
playing field for all SME enterprises to grow and flourish.
Facilitation of SME Support Services
The Governments support to a focused development of SMEs is
critical. Except for cautious wholesaling of credit and capital, this
support will be provided from the perspective of a facilitator. The
SMEF commits to establishing all necessary support services for SMEs.
Its preferred modus operandi will be to to establish public-private
partnership involving trade associations, civil-society organizations and
the private sector in order to improve the delivery of services to SMEs.
Ready and hassles-free provisioning of infrastructure, especially
developed and strategically-located industrial land, and access to
broadband data communication services will be critically important.
Business Environment
The SMEF is committed to helping establish a business environment
conducive for SME development by ensuring that administrative
procedures for business operations are made even more effective. The
Government is also committed to seeing that Doing Business in
Bangladesh is better and remains competitive with other countries in
the region.

Gender Promotion
Equality of opportunity is an avowed policy of the Government. Female
entrepreneurs will be treated non-discriminatorily. Government will
ensure that women entrepreneurs are well represented in business
organizations and forums, and that they are assisted through specific
targeted programs in order to overcome the current disadvantages
faced by them.
Coordination and Cooperation
Dialogue with the private sector and SME entrepreneurs will be a key
element of Government policy. In this respect, a forum specifically to
listen and respond to the needs of the SME entrepreneurs will be
critically important. Development Partners of Bangladesh are already
supporting SMEs through programs and projects that are consistent
with the policy principles outlined here. The Government will take an
active step in ensuring that support from the Development Partners
are coordinated in order to ensure availability and utilization of
resources for SME development. Government will develop stronger,
more effective representations of smaller enterprises interests at
Upazilla and at Thana level, as well as strengthen inter-ministerial
coordination at the national level.
Education
Bangladesh will nurture entrepreneurial spirit and new skills from an
earlier age. General knowledge about business and entrepreneurship
needs to be taught at all levels of the formal education system.
Specific business-related modules should be made an essential
ingredient of education schemes at secondary level and at colleges
and universities. The entrepreneurial endeavors of youngsters should
be encouraged and promoted, and appropriate training schemes for
managers in small enterprises should be developed. In this respect,
formal education will be complemented through vocational training
and workshops.
Governance and Social Responsibility
Security for property and daily business transaction at national and
local level will be strengthened. SMEs in turn will be asked to introduce
appropriate enterprise governance systems, including transparency in
management, preparation and publication of financial accounts and
compliance with laws and regulations.

1.1.1

STRATEGY

The strategy for SME development should cover the period 2005-2006
to 2007-2008. This 3-year period not only covers the SMESDP
implementation and all other priority activities, but also provides the
opportunity for the establishment and operationalization of the SME
Foundation. At the end of the second year an assessment of the
activities undertaken will be carried out in order to evaluate the
strategy and prepare a corporate strategy and operational plan for the
SME Foundation. A summary of the key elements of the SME strategy is
presented below.
i. Marshalling an evidence base to authoratively help assess of what
bindingly constrain growth possibilities of enterprises in strategically
important industrial clusters and/or geographical clusters;
ii. Preparing a staged, sectorally-accented, tactical action plan based
on a suitably rich blend of needs assessment, diagnostic gapanalyses, and presctiptive interventions, ;
iii. Developing and strengthening R&D for technological and product
improvement, and also encouraging/supporting capital goods
production;
iv. Provide regular update(s) as required of major policy
announcement, or market or technology development, from an
advocacy perspective;
v. Improving links with research, technical and vocational institutes
focusing on development and introduction of curriculum for
business and management studies and skill development;
vi. Establishing an approach for SME market access through (i) subsector assistance linked with embedded services, (ii) cross-sector
generic service, and (iii) socially responsible business services relying on and encouraging the private sector to provide such
services;
vii. Provision for well-developed land, equipped with infrastructural
facilities and maintenance capacity, preferably either on a PPP
framework or through the private sector
viii. Facilities for product accreditation by
strengthening BSTI and trade associations;

restructuring

and

ix. Enhancing financial sector development in order to increase SME

access to finance and financial product development (nonconventional products, such as factoring, equity financing);

x. Establishing a SME business registry as a reliable source for

sampling frame for research and analysis of the sector;
xi. Establishing a SME portal and a online helpdesk with consideration
given to appropriate maintenance of such portal;
xii. Establishing and operating helpline outreach center linked to the
SME portal with consideration given to manning and sourcing and
maintaining the equipment and facilities;
xiii. Streamlining of procedures and requirements for registration,
licensing and permit;
ACTION PROGRAM
The Action Program will be drawn up under EIGHT areas:
Marshalling a high-quality evidence base and improving dissemination;
Creating a level policy and institutional playing field, especially for small
enterprises;

Strengthening technological capability and product design

standards;
Improvement of access to finance, including through
institutional reforms;
Enhancinging market access, especially of small enterprises,
and the outreach of support services;
Provisioning of developed industrial land, and broadband
access to the Web;
Improvement of business environment;
Leap-frogging of women entrepreneurship;
Marshalling
Technology

the evidence

base, and harnessing

Information

A comprehensive information base will be assembled and hosted atop the

SME Web Portal. This will be populated with a rich trove of content,
variously, to inform private enterprises and their stakeholders behaviour
amid rampant changes, public policy and policy advocacy.
This
information regeneration will be sourced by product, sectoral and policy
research that will undertaken and/or commissioned by SMEF. Its impact
on conduct and performance of private markets will potentially be made
as powerful as is possible by the use of state-of-the-art, largely Webbased, outreach technologies. Access to information by the SMEs, as also
feedback generated by them, will be made available through the SMEWP
and a country-wide network of helpline outreach centers. This effort will
also be about maintaining the integrated SME. The SME business registry
will be updated regularly so as to pin-point interventions with
accuracy, updating the associated Business Registry of SMEs, and
launching periodic subsector studies;
9

This will also involve building an empowered, cohesive and increasingly

wired virtual community comprising the small and medium
entrepreneurs and all of their stakeholders on the Web, thus helping to
mainstream information and communications technologies in the SME
business process in Bangladesh.
Technology and product quality
A gap- and need-analysis at the level of several high-visibility and highpotential industrial clusters will form the bedrock of the technology and
product quality upgrading work to be done at the SMEF. Medium- and
long-term applied R & D projects will be scoped out, funded and
commissioned, with collaboration with top-tier technical universities in the
country. Substantial contributions will be made towards making the
teaching curriculum of the many public poly-technic institutes and VTIs
more topical and demand-friendly. Technical training institutes such as
BITAC will be evaluated in order to determine competency in technical
knowledge transfer to SMEs, as will the relevance of the. Cooperation
network will be set up between Bangladeshi technical institutes,
universities and associations with international/regional counterparts for
knowledge transfer. BSTI will be strengthened through EU and ADB
programs by improving testing facilities and quality counseling capacity.
Also, BSTI will be prepared for accreditation and quality certificate
issuance, focusing on SMEs. Other trade organizations will be encouraged
to improve their capacity for quality counseling and develop common
testing facilities.
Access to finance
In order to strengthen SME access to finance, credit will be made available
through the SEF to the commercial banks for loans to SMEs. So that,
commercial banks increasingly loan to SMEs, in addition to financing
schemes through the SEF, there is a need to improve the enabling
environment and address the risks currently faced by banks. Also, SMEs
will require assistance in terms of accessing information on credit,
preparing loan applications and project preparation. On the other hand,
loan officers from commercial banks also will require understanding and
appreciation of SME operations, financing terms and conditions matched
with business requirements, and benefit impact monitoring procedures.

Market access
There is a need to institutionalize such approaches and a study will be
carried out to find out options for institutional arrangements to facilitate
market access. It could be that the role of SCITI is transformed into such
an institution, if found viable. For SCITI (or the recommended facilitation
10

unit) the Action program will design approaches consistent with ongoing
activities, organize links with the private sector and other professionally
qualified organizations and design facilities for market access in addition
to those already undertaken.
Infrastructural facilities
The role of BSCIC in the provision of developed land equipped with basic
infrastructural facilities will be evaluated in order to determine how best it
can serve SME needs. Activities of the PSDSP and ADB work relating to
this will be coordinated and appropriate framework established. A
strategy for integrated infrastructural facilities will be developed through
consultations with financing agencies, donors, SMEs and other
stakeholders. Action program will include determination of appropriate
institutional mechanism with private sector participation for design of
such facilities and management of such facility, together with a
determination of the role and responsibility of BSCIC.
Business environment
The complaints that SME units are being subjected to a large number of
Acts and Laws, being required to maintain a number of registers and
submit returns, and face an army of inspectors, would be attended to
within a specified time frame. A review needs to be carried out in order to
assess the prevailing situation and to prepare recommendations for
improvement.
Women entrepreneurship
Mainstreaming of gender concerns will be ensured by targeting credit
programs for the benefit of women entrepreneurs, organizing them to
participate in forums to voice their concerns, providing targeted training
for access to finance and markets, technology and production planning
support services and access to information. Women entrepreneurs
association will be encouraged to establish link with other business/trade
organizations in order to promote women labor and entrepreneurs
concerns.
Table 1. Preliminary Framework for SME Action Program
Areas

Action Plan

Technologica 1. Assess competencies of technical institutes, such as

l
and
BITAC, BCSIR to provide technological and production
product
planning and process services.
standards
2. Establish links with technical organizations and
11

Areas

Action Plan
universities, such as BUET in order to deliver technical
support services to SMEs.
3. Set up cooperation network between
organizations and regional/international
institutes aiming at technology transfer.

technical
technical

4. Systematically increase SME capacity for product and

process
innovation
through
the
provision
of
competitive
R&D
grants
to
business
incubators/innovation centers set up within existing
technical institutions.
5. Strengthen the capacity of BSTI and improve testing
facilities and accreditation by ensuring ADB and EU
programs cover all necessary project scope.
6. Design and implement awareness programs for SMEs
to disseminate the advantages of quality product and
maintenance of standards.
7. Strengthen capacity of trade associations for quality
counseling and non-mandatory certification of standards.
Market
Access

1. SME Cell to establish link with ongoing programs,

particularly Katalyst, GTZ, SEDF in order to determine
gaps for support services, if any.
2. BSCIC projects for direct intervention, including
financing schemes to small and cottage industries will
be comprehensively audited and lessons evaluated. In
view of BSCIC core competency analysis and similar
ongoing activities in the private sector (mainly
sponsored by NGOs) determine whether such direct
interventions are justified under the current SME policy
and strategy.
3. Undertake comprehensive audit of SCITI training
programs in order to assess training development and
delivery capacity, human resource skills, outreach,
relevancy of target groups in view of the SME policy
and strategy as defined above, materials and facilities
and financial position. The audit will clearly outline the
methodology and approach followed by SCITI and
whether those are commensurate with ongoing
program approaches and international practice and
standards.
4. Determine the role of SCITI in BDS activity and

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Areas

Action Plan
recommend whether the approach to BDS by SCITI
should focus on facilitating services in line with SEDF,
Katalyst and other donor programs in the field.
5. Analyze options in order to determine whether SCITI
should remain an independent institution or merged
into the SME Foundation (SMEF)
6. Design and develop approaches to market access for
products and BDS by preparing a business model and
plan for the transformed (new) SCITI.

Access
Finance

to 2. Government to ensure availability of funds in the

commercial banks for SMEs on a first come first serve
basis.
3. Rationalize credit facilities provided by Government
and recommend future participation in line with the
policy principles.
4. Set up a credit information bureau for SMEs either by
extension of the current CIB at the BB or separately.
5. Review draft of secured transaction act and adopt into
a law.
6. Review development of a small-claims court and, if
found feasible, institute court with appropriate
resources and mandate.
7. Provide capacity building support to commercial banks
participating in SME loaning by coordinating with SEDF
and any other ongoing activities.
8. Assess and evaluate SEF in order to learn impact of
financing scheme(s) and prepare strategy for further
improvement in access to finance by SMEs.

Infrastructur 1. Undertake a comprehensive diagnostic audit of BSCIC

al Facility
industrial estate operations in order to assess its land
preparation, valuation, allocation and management
operations in view of current SME development and
growth requirements.
2. SME Cell to initiate preparation of a strategy for the
development of industrial park/zone/estates by
collaborating with PSDSP.
3. Determine implementation schedule based on the
strategy, framework and monitor development.

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Areas

Action Plan
4. Prepare
recommendations
for
an
appropriate
institutional
framework
for
the
provision
of
infrastructural services and management of current
industrial estates. Consultations to be held with
financial institutions such as IDLC, IIFC, JBIC, and with
other
donors
in
preparing
the
framework.
Recommendation
may
include
closure
or
transformation of BSCIC into a new legal unit with
clear mandate.
1. Develop business models, corporate strategy and plan
for the new unit responsible for provision of integrated
infrastructural services.

SME
information

1.SME Cell in collaboration with BBS will ensure

preparation of an up-to-date SME business registry.
2.Design an approach for updating and maintenance of
SME registry
3.Undertake a nation-wide survey of SME with the SME
business registry as the sampling frame in order to
carry out analytical work related to the performances
of the sector and to establish basic indicators of
operations.
4.Develop a web portal of SMEs under the ADB project
and in cooperation with ongoing activities by other
donors and programs such as GTZ, Katalyst and SEDF
in order to provide information and support services to
entrepreneurs.
5.Determine portal-host and management process of
such a portal.
6.Implement the web portal with a view to draw
subscriptions and commercialization of such an
operation by preparing business model and plan.
7.Develop online helpdesk independently operated by
an organization or as part of the portal facility and
make it operational.
8.Establish and operate helpline outreach centers linked
online to the SME web portal and organized as publicprivate partnership with district chambers, trade
associations, etc. as partners.

Women
entrepreneu

1. At least 10% of the funds of SEF will be targeted to

women borrowers for a limited time depending on the
14

Areas
rship

Action Plan
utilization of this allocation by women borrowers.
2. An awareness program for women entrepreneurs
access to finance and market, technology and
counseling on quality, and information will be
organized.
3. Strong link will be established with women
entrepreneurs associations and other business/trade
organizations, the SME Cell and other public/private
organizations.
4. Mainstreaming of gender concerns will be ensured in
the content of all training modules developed and used
in the training programs.
5. Women entrepreneurs will be encouraged to voice their
concerns in a forum to be organized by the SME Cell.

Institutional
arrangemen
ts

1.Undertake necessary documentation

tasks to set up the SME Foundation

and

planning

2.Prepare business model, corporate strategy and plan

for the SME Foundation.
3.Until SME Foundation is established, implement related
SME support activities by activating the SME Cell in the
MoI.
4.Carry out assessments of all public sector institutions
engaged in SME development and support services in
order to determine their future role, if any.
5.Implement activities related to the adopted option for
public sector institutions.

Business
1. SME Cell to initiate a review of work currently being
environment
undertaken by the World Bank Groups PSDSP
consultants and an assessment of previous studies.
2. Present findings, conclusions and recommendations to
the SME Advisory Panel (SMEAP).
3. SME Cell to establish a regularized impact assessment
of business improvement implementation results.
6.SME Cell to initiate a structured process for security
situation by a review of complaints, surveys, etc. and
to prepare recommendations for submission to the
SMEAP.

15