Business Desk :
The contribution of small to medium enterprises to the GDP of Bangladesh is very low compared to other emerging economies of the world, and small and medium practitioners can play a great role to help this sector bounce back, said speakers at a global webinar.
Speakers made the remarks at the global webinar titled ‘Future ready SMEs and SMPs: Vital for Sustainable Economy’ organised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh (ICAB) on Sunday to mark International SMEs/SMPs day 2021.
Speakers also said the Small to Medium Enterprise (SME) sector in the country cannot grow substantially because of lack of fiscal incentives, management problems, access to finance, skilled manpower and policy inconsistency.
Along with these in the Covid scenario, the situation became more aggravated as cash-flow problem, liquidity crisis, IT skill gap, reduction of production costs, for example, shifting to e-commerce practices and digitalisation of operations have emerged as new challenges to the SME sector.
Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi, as the chief guest of the webinar, said during the ongoing Covid-19 crisis, Small and Medium Practitioner (SMP) accountants can play a great role in supporting SMEs. As advisers to the SMEs, they provide the link between the SME sector and the ecosystem that the sector has to navigate.
“I believe SMPs have been able to demonstrate themselves to their clients as valued advisers, and help them to build businesses that are sustainable for the long term.”
ICAB President Mahmudul Hasan Khusru said SMPs were providing services for adjustment to technological advancements and evolving needs of their clients with the changing business environment.
On how SMPs can support SMEs, Maria Howlader, vice president of ICAB and one of the keynote presenters, said many SME industries do not know the importance of SMPs in their business procedure.
ICAB will take initiatives for collaboration with the government, SME Foundation and different trade bodies for making the industry aware of the quality and diversified services of SMPs and so on, she added.
Maria said SMPs can provide advisory supports to SMEs in the fields of tax and VAT advisory, loan, merger and acquisitions (M&A), loan documentation, restructuring, succession planning, insolvency, liquidation, financial planning, modelling, structuring, support on business development and Human Resources policies and procedures, employment regulations etc.
Describing the transformation of SMP’s, another keynote presenter Christopher Arnold pointed out the importance of SMP services during and after the Covid pandemic as SMPs always focus on an advisory role and the growth opportunities of the sector.
In Bangladesh, SMEs are considered as an engine of economic growth that constitutes over 90 per cent of business enterprises while 97.60 per cent in India, 99 per cent in China, 99.70 per cent in Japan and 60 per cent in Pakistan.
SME contributes to 20.25 per cent of the GDP of Bangladesh, which is considerably low in comparison to other emerging economies. Bangladesh has 17,384 micro enterprises out of which 15,666 are small, 6,103 medium and 3,639 large scale enterprises.
