The 16th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the SME Foundation was held at the Parjatan Bhaban Auditorium of the Agargaon area in the capital on Saturday.
In the AGM, Professor Md Mafizur Rahman, managing director of the SME Foundation said that the SME entrepreneurs need more money to cope with the losses incurred by the pandemic.
He also said that despite the Covid-19 pandemic, more than 8,500 entrepreneurs directly benefited from the SME Foundation's program in the last financial year.
To turn around from the losses of the pandemic, the foundation has disbursed a loan of Tk300 crore from the government's incentive package to 3,107 small and medium entrepreneurs in just four and a half months.
He also said that they coordinated regularly with 19 banks and financial institutions to ensure the smooth disbursement of incentive package loans.
He further said that SME Foundation performed various activities for the entrepreneurs like disbursement of the government incentive package, marketing of goods, development of skills and market expansion for the at home and abroad.
Among the loan recipients, 4,968 were women, 3,509 were male, and 60 were third gender entrepreneurs, he added.
He also said that due to Covid-19, the SME Foundation has organized the country's regional SME Product Fair online, and the 3rd Heritage Handloom Festival 2020 in the fiscal year 2020-21, which played an important role in marketing the products of entrepreneurs.
The 14 members of the board gave their views and recommendations on the report of the board of directors.
They said that various programs of the SME Foundation have played an important role in overcoming the losses of small and medium entrepreneurs due to the pandemic.
However, they also demanded an increase in the allocation of funds in favour of the SME Foundation to further strengthen its activities to bring more SME entrepreneurs under the government's incentive package.
Professor Md Masudur Rahman, chairman of the SME Foundation chaired the meeting.
The board of directors presented the activities of SME Foundation in FY2020-21, approved the audited financial statements and auditor's report and presented and approved the budget for FY 2022-23.
