The Building Skills for Unemployed and Underemployed Labour (B-SkillFUL) Programme in collaboration with Truvalu.enterprises Limited, hosted an event titled "Share Your Stories" on Tuesday, 30th May 2023 at Lakeshore Hotel Gulshan.
The event was organised to showcase how micro, small and medium size enterprises (MSMEs) tackled challenges brought on by the pandemic and economic downturn. The event fostered collaboration and knowledge-sharing by facilitating networking opportunities amongst the MSMEs, financial institutions, business development service providers, development partners, and other stakeholders.
Recognising how MSMEs employ over 40% of the workforce and contribute over 25% to the country’s GDP, Switzerland partnered with Swisscontact and Truvalu to provide support to enterprises on improving their efficiency through better business operations and skilled workforce. The partnership with Truvalu focused on facilitating access to finance to mostly those MSMEs who never availed loans, introducing them to the formal banking system.
In his speech, Mr. Mujibul Hasan, Country Director of Swisscontact stated, “It is truly inspiring how efficiently MSMEs adopted systemic and operational transformation offered by both of B-SkillFUL and COVID-19 Recovery Project. As Bangladesh is approaching the milestone of graduating from a least-developed country to a developing one by 2026, it becomes imperative to prioritise the integration of the informal economy sectors and private sectors into our country's overall business ecosystem.”
Sharawwat Islam, Managing Director, Truvalu.enterprises Limited expressed her gratitude towards Swisscontact, the Embassy of Switzerland in Bangladesh for their relentless support to weather the storm of this pandemic and continue to uplift MSMEs towards a brighter tomorrow for both economic returns and social impact.
At the event, SGS Bangladesh, a strategic partner of the B-SkillFUL Programme, presented its experience of working with MSMEs in quality management and ISO 9001:2015 certification. Mr Abdur Rashid, Country Manager, SGS, handed out the certificates to the MSMEs.