Salman for skills development to face 4th industrial revolution

Prime Minister’s Private Industry and Investment Adviser Salman Fazlur Rahman today said concerted efforts are needed to develop skilled human resources in the country to face the challenges of the 4th industrial revolution.

“We’ll have to work more for skills development to face the challenges of the 4th industrial revolution,” he said, addressing as chief guest the inaugural session of a workshop titled “The Role of Media in Promoting SME Development and Sustainability” at the office of the Economic Reporters’ Forum (ERF) in the city.

The adviser termed the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) as the foundation of any economy and underscored the need for putting more emphasis on flourishing of the country’s SME sector.

Industries Secretary Md Abdul Halim, Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation (BSCIC) Chairman Md Mostaque Hassan and First Secretary, Team Leader, Food Security, Nutrition and Sustainable Development of the Delegation of the EU to Bangladesh Manfred Fernholz spoke at the function as special guests with ERF President Saiful Islam Dilal in the chair. ERF General Secretary SM Rashedul Islam also spoke.

Team Leader, Technical Assistance to BSCIC Ali Sabet made a power-point presentation on the topic.

The workshop was organized by the Poverty Reduction through Inclusive and Sustainable Markets (PRISM) project funded by EU.

Salman said in line with the visions and directives from Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, BSCIC has been strengthened and reorganized over the years. He hinted that one-stop service would be incorporated in the operations of the corporation.

Turning to the good news of moving eight notches up by Bangladesh in the recent ease of doing business index revealed by the World Bank, he said although there has been advancement, but the country is still lagging behind in the ease of doing business index and competitive index.

“We’ll definitely improve further as there has been some reforms……we’ll improve in all the indexes in the coming days and we hope to come to the double digit in the ease of doing business index by 2021, Insha Allah,” he added.

Noting that some 6 to 7 lakh IT free lancers working in the country and they are mobilizing around $1 billion annually in foreign currency, he said a database would be developed for registering the IT free lancers and certificates would be awarded to them so that they can get their due recognition, avail bank loans and other facilities.

Citing some of the success stories of the country’s SMEs like the backward linkage industries to the RMG sector, Salman said these backward linkage industries directly exported products worth $1 billion to countries like Vietnam, China, Turkey and South Korea alongside their deemed export and this is a very good achievement.

Industries Secretary Md Abdul Halim said that gazette notification on the new SME policy would be published soon.

He said that the government is eying to raise the contributions of the industrial sector to 40 percent of GDP by 2030 as well as raising the contribution of the SME sector to the industrial sector to 28 percent.

Mentioning that the central ETP at the Savar Tannery Industrial Estate is likely to become operational by December, Halim informed that the new leather industry policy is eying to fetch $5 billion by 2024 from leather and leather goods export.

BSCIC Chairman Md Mostaque Hassan said that the government is looking forward to creating some 1 crore employment opportunities through setting up some 50 industrial parks on 20,000 acres of land by 2030.

Manfred Fernholz said that the EU is the largest trade, development and humanitarian partner of Bangladesh, adding, “We’ll continue to support Bangladesh for better trade, boosting human and labour rights and thus contributing to the overall development of Bangladesh.”

Noting that the promotion and importance of SMEs is quite high in Bangladesh like in other countries of the world, he said these are playing an important role in alleviating people from poverty.