The ninth national small medium enterprise (SME) products fair 2021 is going to be organised from December 5 to December 12 with the aim of promoting entrepreneurs and expanding this market through the diversification of products.

SME Foundation is going to organise the fair at Bangabandhu International Conference Center in the capital where there will be 325 stalls for wholly local products.

Md Mafizur Rahman, managing director of SME Foundation, disclosed this at a press conference at Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation yesterday.

The fair will highly prioritise agriculture, food processing and agro machinery manufacturers, ICT, software, leather and leather products, light engineering, jute and jute products, plastics, handicrafts and imitation jewellery.

The same has been done in the national industrial policy 2016.

Rahman said only local manufacturers and service-oriented micro, small and medium enterprises would get the opportunity to exhibit and sell products and services at the fair.

The fair will remain open to visitors for free every day from 10:00am to 8:00pm.

This time 60 per cent of the participating entrepreneurs are women. A total of 116 companies focusing fashion and boutique are participating in the fair.

Besides, 37 companies producing leather products, 36 food and agro-processing, 33 handicrafts, 29 jute, 17 light engineering, four IT, six electrical and electronics, four herbal, four imitation jewellery, and three plastic companies are participating in the fair.

Addressing the press conference, Nurul Majid Mahmud Humayun, the minister for industries, said SME Foundation was organising the fair to locally and internationally promote, sell and expand the market of products produced by small and medium enterprises.

According to him, although the small and medium enterprises produce high quality products, they face many problems due to a lack of proper knowledge of the marketing process.

Moderated by Md Masudur Rahman, chairperson of SME Foundation, Kamal Ahmed Mojumder, state minister for industries, and Zakia Sultana, secretary to the industries ministry, addressed the briefing.