‘SMEs cannot grow due to lack of incentives, access to finance’

The SME sector cannot grow substantially due to a lack of fiscal incentives, access to finance, skilled manpower and policy inconsistency, speakers said at a webinar marking International MSMEs Day today.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh (ICAB) organised the webinar on "Future Ready SMEs and SMPs: Vital for Sustainable Economy".

The situation became more aggravated amid Covid-19 as the cash-flow problem, liquidity crisis, IT skill gap and reduction of production costs are emerged as the new challenges to the SME sector, they said.

In Bangladesh, SMEs are considered as the engine of economic growth that constitutes over 90 per cent of business enterprises while it is 97.60 per cent in India, 99 per cent in China, 99.70 per cent in Japan and 60 per cent in Pakistan, speakers said at the programme.

SME contributes 20.25 per cent to Bangladesh's gross domestic product (GDP) which is very low in comparison to other emerging economies.

Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi said the small and medium practitioner (SMP) accountants can play a great role in supporting SMEs during the Covid-19 crisis.

"I believe SMPs will be able to demonstrate as value advisers to their clients and help them build businesses sustainable," he said.