Entrepreneurship support fund awaits a boost
The central bank has amended its entrepreneurship support fund (ESF) guidelines for food-processing, agriculture and ICT sectors to create them more entrepreneur-friendly.
Yesterday it published a complete ESF guideline and ones on the expression of interest (EOI) forms.
In addition, it sought applications from entrepreneurs who would like to secure loans from the fund for the initiatives in the food-processing, agriculture and ICT sectors.
The brand new guideline defines a female entrepreneur as a person who owns at least 51 per cent share in an entity and would head the project as the managing director.
Costs which range from Tk 0.80 crore to Tk 5 crore will be considered for loans from the ESF fund in the event of food processing and agro-based projects. It could be a maximum Tk 12 crore for machinery-intensive projects.
For women-led projects, the lower limit of the project cost will be Tk 0.5 crore.
Entrepreneurs would need to invest 51 % of the project cost as equity and the rest 49 per cent would result from the ESF in the sort of term loans, according to the Entrepreneurship Support Fund (ESF) Guideline 2018 (Amended).
If 51 per cent of the target isn't reached in land and necessary infrastructure for the machinery-intensive projects, it needs to be met through the investment attained through the margin of letters of credit on the imports of equipment.
Although the most recent guideline called for submitting EOI online, the central bank would accept hard copies of the applications until further notice, the circular said.
Beneath the new guideline, entrepreneurs and their representatives linked to proposed projects wouldn't normally must be present through the meeting of the project analysis committee.
The ESF aims to create new entrepreneurs in the regions of food processing, agriculture and ICT.
The fund was formed in 2000-01 beneath the name of the Equity & Entrepreneurship Fund (EEF) through a budgetary allocation of Tk 100 crore.
As the fund didn't achieve its goals, the central bank in 2018 moved from the equity model, introduced financing that posesses simple interest, and changed its name from the EEF to the ESF.
