New Age | Blended finance, technology crucial to turn CMSMEs into growth engine
New Age | Blended finance, technology crucial to turn CMSMEs into growth engine
Publish Date: 2026-06-27 11:41:00
Source Domain: www.newagebd.net
Fazlul Kader Chowdhury.
Bangladesh must prioritise technological adaptation, digital market access and blended finance to pull cottage, micro, small and medium enterprises out of the low-productivity trap and turn it into a major engine of employment-led economic growth, said Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation managing director Fazlul Kader Chowdhury.
In an interview with New Age, Kader highlighted that millions of small entrepreneurs remain trapped in a cycle of low productivity, low income, and low profitability, despite making up the majority of the country’s businesses and workforce.
To break this cycle, he argued that technology must become the central driver for transforming cottage and micro enterprises, improving production efficiency, cutting costs, expanding market access, and enabling data-driven business decisions.
Technology is already in the hands of people. The challenge is how to use it productively for CMSMEs,’ Fazlul Kader said.
He said that digital tools had reached most parts of Bangladesh, including rural areas, creating opportunities that were not available to earlier generations.
The task now, he said, is to connect these technologies with production, finance, marketing, and business planning and value-chain development.
‘Our main task is to determine how this technology can be put to good use for CMSMEs,’ he said.
According to him, Bangladesh has more than one crore CMSMEs, while cottage and micro enterprises account for more than 92 per cent of the total.
PKSF mainly works with cottage and micro enterprises, which currently have around 2.25 crore clients across the country, including nearly 40 lakh small entrepreneurs.
Although CMSMEs…
