Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday urged the entrepreneurs to increase their investments at district and upazila levels to ensure balanced development and reduce burden on Dhaka city.She asked the Finance Ministry, Bangladesh Bank and other financing institutions to take steps in reducing bank interest rate for investment in various sectors outside the city and also to consider special incentives.She made the offer while addressing the inaugural ceremony of two-day SME Financing Fair- 2009 at a city hotel yesterday. Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) Foundation and Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) jointly arranged the fair which is participated by 26 institutions with 29 stalls. "We want to take public and private services also to upazila and district levels. I urge our country's industrialists and entrepreneurs to set up mills and factories in the rural areas," she said. She said the government is working relentlessly to reduce disparity between the rich and the poor, and for this employment opportunities will have to be created in the rural areas through both public and private-sector initiatives. Hasina in her speech termed corruption as the main impediment to country's development and urged all stakeholders to free the country's public and private sectors from the vicious cycle of corruption. Mentioning corruption and mismanagement in the economic sector during the last seven years, she said "We must root out corruption from the country to implement all development programmes with cent-percent success." Hasina said her government has taken various steps to remove problems faced by the small and medium entrepreneurs. Every bank and financial institution has been given permission to open SME Service Centre for promoting SMEs. "So, I think, there is no need to open an SME Bank separately," she opined. She said a fund of Tk 100, formed by the Bangladesh Bank for refinancing facilities for the SMEs, has already been increased to Tk 600 crore. The government will try to further reduce interest rate for agriculture, SME, housing and commerce sectors, she said, adding that already for these sectors bank-loan interests have been lowered to 13 per cent. Referring to the new Industry Policy-2009, the PM said various effective measurers have been taken for expansion of the country's industrial sector.She said the present government is providing export assistance for 13 products as export diversification is the main objective of the government. Besides, she said cash allocation of Tk 450 crore has been earmarked in the revised budget for giving assistance to the export sector while a special stimulus package has been given to save the industrial sector from the world economic recession.She also requested the governing bodies of the banks and financing institutions to provide the SMEs with collateral-free loan and keep the loans' interests rate at a logical level. With SME Foundation Chairman Aftab Ul Islam and DCCI President Zafar Osman jointly in the chair, the inaugural ceremony was also addressed by Finance Minister AMA Muhith, Industries Minister Dilip Barua, Commerce Minister Faruk Khan and Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr Atiur Rahman. Later, nine entrepreneurs and different commercial banks and financial institutions signed an "On-The-Spot Project Financing Agreement" in presence of the Prime Minister. She also went round different SME stalls on the hotel premises.
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