The 10th National Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Fair-2022 will be held from November 24 to December 3 this year with the aim of promoting SME entrepreneurs and expanding their markets through product diversification.

The fair will be organised by the SME Foundation at the Bangabandhu International Conference Center (BICC) in Dhaka, where 350 stalls will be available for SMEs to showcase their products and take orders.

Industries Minister Nurul Majid Mahmud Humayun is expected to inaugurate the fair, which will be open to visitors from 10:00am to 8:00pm every day.

Of the 325 organisations participating in the event, some 130 are from the fashion design sector.

In addition, food and agro-processing, handicraft, leather, jute, ICT, light engineering and plastic product makers will be among the participants.

Besides the fair itself, seminars will be organised on five topics, namely easy financing, women-entrepreneurship, technology, ICT and cluster development for SME entrepreneurs.

In order to recognise the contribution of SME entrepreneurs, the SME Foundation has taken the initiative to give the 'National SME Entrepreneur Award 2022' in both male and female categories.

This year, six entrepreneurs will be awarded in each of the five categories.

The SME Foundation has been organising the fair since 2012. Since then, 1,886 entrepreneurs have sold products worth about Tk 32.88 crore while receiving orders worth around Tk 53.50 crore at the event.

Cottage, micro, small-and-medium enterprises account for nearly a fourth of Bangladesh's gross domestic product.

Of the roughly 10 lakh small-and-medium scale businesses and 68 lakh cottage industries in Bangladesh, 7.21 per cent are being run by women.

According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics Economic Census 2013, there were 78.8 lakh business establishments in the country that year.

Among them, 87.52 per cent are cottage industries while 1.33 per cent are micro, 10.99 per cent are small, 0.09 per cent are medium and 0.07 per cent are large industries.