Govt to help create 5,000 e-commerce entrepreneurs

The commerce ministry along with one of its wings, Business Promotion Council, has taken up a plan to train up about 5,000 e-commerce entrepreneurs in cooperation with the e-Commerce Association of Bangladesh (e-CAB) in the next three years.

The e-CAB is inviting applications from interested youths, including those who are currently working for different online business houses and are interested to develop their own business ventures.

Females will get priority in enrolment for the training session which will begin from the first week of February, said Abdul Wahed Tomal, general secretary of the e-CAB.

The initial plan is to select 2,000 trainees from Dhaka, 1,200 from Chattogram and 300 each from all of the other divisional cities.

Following an evaluation, the e-CAB will invite trainees to join an 11-day camp. They will start off with two batches, each comprising 50 trainees, said Tomal. “The government envisions developing online commerce in the country and that's why they have funded us to create a bunch of entrepreneurs; we have taken the lead,” he said.

Leaders of the e-CAB said, although a market had already developed amid rising demand, there was a lack of innovation and entrepreneurs.

The online business has developed into an annual market of around Tk 2,000 crore and is growing by about 100 percent every year, estimates the e-CAB. It says to have targeted to bring about 1 lakh online business platforms and the training was the preliminary step.

Tamal quoted global reports as saying that 70 percent of business across the globe would be conducted online by 2025. The whole ecosystem will change within the next five years and the new generation cannot survive if they fail to stay in sync with it. That is why the initiative has been taken in line with the government aim, says the association.