( INTRODUCTION)

Selima Ahmed, a successful business women having long business experience had been involved in several trade organization, founded BWCCI acutely feeling the need for a nationwide Chamber of Commerce for women by persuading and mobilizing women entrepreneurs, government and development partners in Bangladesh. The BWCCI, established on June 20, 2001, is registered with the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies and Firms (RJSCF) of Bangladesh Government. It is also affiliated with the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) as an A class chamber, since which envisions womens economic empowerment and development for business women and industrialists in Bangladesh. It is a non-profit, non-political organization, a strong community voice, has been lobbying for women entrepreneurs working in both micro, and macro levels to assist not only their growth but also improving their social and economic prospects. The members of BWCCI are from the entire range of socio-economic continuum. It has already emerged as an advocacy organization with increased acceptance among cross section of people at the national and international level. I recognition of its contribution; the BWCCI has achieved UN consultative status with its Economic and Social Council.

(1.1 ORIGIN OF THE REPORT)

The term report is itself an attempt to provide undergraduate students an orientation to a real life situation, which helps to observe and evaluate the use and applicability of theoretical concepts, which are taught in the classroom. The BBA program requires that the students complete some practical work in the form of reports. This helps to introduce the students with real life situations. As per the norms, this report is the requirement of the BBA program.

(1.2 OBJECTIVE OF THE REPORT)

BWCCI is the only chamber in Bangladesh working tremendously for women entrepreneurship and empowerment. This report will help the reader to:

Know what the chamber works mainly for.

BWCCIs objective to improve the stand of women.

Functions of BWCCI in the empowerment of women.

Importance of BWCCI in developing the women of the country

Role of BWCCI in the economy of Bangladesh.

(1.3 METHODOLOGY OF THE REPORT)

In this report, we used both primary and secondary data. The sources of data are:

Primary Data Sources: Firstly, most of our group members being business background students we had just a mild idea about BWCCI. Secondly, our group member Protick Bhowmick personally had an appointment with Mr. Sayed Sultan Chand, Secretary, BWCCI to gather more information on the topics like objectives and its role in the countrys economy.

Secondary Data Sources: Since the only source of gathering information about BWCCI was the internet as the chamber is scarcely seen and heard of in social media. However, we were successful in collecting journals and some of the chambers publications.

(1.4 LIMITATIONS OF THE REPORT)

Research work is very much comprehensive. It is an accumulation of both information and creative thinking. It required great effort and sound planning to make this report. It is true that we got help from many responsible people. Still we faced some problems. As we are new in this field and it is one of our first report; we felt the lack of experience in every stage of our work. However, we tried our level best to overcome this. On top of that, our topic was BWCCI; which was not known by some. Even though one of our group members personally visited the chamber himself for information, but the secretary was not so much cooperative as expected. Nevertheless, in this sector we found some new concept as well. In this respect, there may be some lacking in the report because of our knowledge limitation. We tried to write the report in a sequential way. All errors are very unintentional. At the end, we are very happy to present this report to the readers and its success will depend on the positive response of the readers.

(2.1 OVERVIEW OF BWCCI)

Bangladesh Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BWCCI) is a non-profit, non-political organization established in June 2001 with an enlightened aim to encourage and strengthen womens participation in the private sector as entrepreneurs through promoting a women friendly business environment. BWCCI is the countrys first chamber of commerce, which is exclusively working on womens economic and social empowerment. It is registered with the government under the Ministry of Commerce. It is also registered with Joint stock Company of Bangladesh Government. It has also been affiliated as an A class chamber with the Federation of the Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI), the main umbrella organization of the trade bodies in Bangladesh, since 2008. BWCCI is a strong community voice, lobbying for micro to macro women entrepreneurs to assists their growth and to improve their social and economic prospects. Because of its unbroken efforts towards promotion of a gender friendly business environment, private sector development and grassroots women participation in economic sectors, BWCCI has already emerged as advocacy organization with increased acceptance among cross section of people at the national and the international level. In recognition of its contribution, BWCCI has achieved UN consultative status with its Economic and Social Council. The rapid increases in its membership from diversified sectors every year and expansion of its working areas and services across the country may be mentioned here as one of the indicators of its successful and dynamic journey towards its enlightened vision.The women entrepreneurs of Bangladesh are energetic, willing to learn, innovative, hard working, and are willing to take risks. Small amount of assistance is extremely effective for them to graduate from micro to more sustainable small and medium sized entrepreneurs. Recognizing this potential of women entrepreneurs to play a more effective role in private sector development in the country, BWCCI was formed to act as a nucleus to assist, activate, inform, organize, and assimilate Bangladeshs women entrepreneurs.BWCCI is committed to being a leader of broad based economic development in Bangladesh for businesspersons & industrialists. Our will is to support the women business community by providing training, management & financial resource, expertise & support networks that enable small businesses to succeed & prosper. We serve all businesses with a special focus on small, micro rural women entrepreneurs. The members of BWCCI are individual entrepreneurs of micro, small and medium enterprises and NGOs that are engaged in promotion of women in business and economic sectors. The members of BWCCI are from the entire range of socio-economic spectrum. Although the members are predominantly engaged in various traditionally women dominated sectors, such as food, beauty, fashion, health products, handicrafts etc., its membership is also increasing among the emerging group of women entrepreneurs in various non-traditional businesses such as IT, media, publication and other services.

(2.2 OBJECTIVE OF BWCCI)

To mobilize economic growth among the urban and rural women of Bangladesh by 2020;

To ensure womens strong voice in all spheres of economic and political activity with an aim to build a healthy and prosperous nation;

Become the most credible and strong voice among stakeholders in bringing about policy, legal, social and regulatory changes;

Lead the nation towards progress through economic, political and social empowerment of women;

To promote entrepreneurship among women in rural and urban areas through Capacity Building program by counseling, training ,product and market development;

To advocate for a gender friendly environment and policies enabling growth of women owned enterprises.

(2.3 FUNCTIONS OF BWCCI)

The functions of BWCCI are mainly women entrepreneurship and empowerment. It stands as the only organization since 2001 in Bangladesh working for women nationally. With strength of 3000 members, it works extensively for women like organizing training sessions for women, participating in trade fairs and so on. It mobilizes the economy among women both in urban and rural areas. It also works to ensure a strong voice for women in all spheres of the economy. It helps to promote advocacy for a gender friendly environment and growth of women owned enterprise. The only nationally recognized enterprise for women, BWCCI facilitates women entrepreneurship to get access to finance, develop network and partnership. The chamber now acts as a national platform for urban and rural women entrepreneurs with an aim to enhance their contributions in all spheres of life through attaining substantial financial strength, recognition in family, society, economic and public life. It has tie-ups with innumerable number of national and international organizations and embassies like European Union, HITAL, IDRF and many more to put the women of Bangladesh at a level with other nations. It aims to build a prosperous Bangladesh through progress and economic empowerment of women. BWCCI has been successful in providing more than 7,000 women with a source of earning through various ways like producing handicrafts, farming, lobbing in different job sectors. Its function of advocacy for promoting the growth of women owned enterprise is getting recognition.

(2.4 IMPORTANCE OF BWCCI)

Bangladesh Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BWCCI) play a very important role in the advocacy, entrepreneurship and empowerment of women nationally as the sole body in the country working for women. Women consist of a substantial section of the society and crimes like assault, trafficking and deprivation of women often hit the headlines. Therefore, the only ways to overcome these crimes are to involve them in the economy and make them self-dependent and self-sufficient. As we are, still not in the list middle-income country, the fame can only be achieved through involvement of women in the economy, which will help to remove the ongoing job crisis. The government also supports the chamber by helping them with lobbing competent women in the job sector and allocating a fund of BDT 1 billion in the national budget. It mainly works on advocacy of women like giving loan to women at single digit interest and preference in job sector. There are many small women based organizations but their scale of service is not as vast as BWCCI. Most of the members of the BWCCI are holding high post jobs in public and private sector all over the country, which helps them in giving preference to women in jobs. The government has started allocating fund for BWCCI in the national budget and decreased the interest rate of loan for women. The chamber has also proposed for a quota for women in the public sector jobs to recruit women and help them remove the social barriers that we still see and hear very often prevailing in the society.

(2.5 ROLE OF BWCCI IN THE ECONOMY OF BANGLADESH)

As the sole chamber working for women nationally, BWCCI has contributed to the national economy quite a lot. The figure of BWCCIs contribution to the national economy cannot be estimated in percentage of GDP but looking at the achievements. The list of few achievements which have substantial contribution are given below:

Separate fund allocation in the national budget 2012-2013.

Collateral free loan for women at 10%; the lowest in the country.

About 9029 women entrepreneurs have received SME loan amounting to BDT 708,48,40,372 crore.

BWCCI training institute is under construction and is expected to be completed promptly.

BWCCI has been awarded the Women Entrepreneurs Annual Progressive Award.

BWCCI President Mrs. Selima Ahmed received Oslo Business for Peace Award 2014.

BWCCI President Mrs. Selima Ahmed won the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) Prize 2012.

It was the sole proposal of BWCCI to appoint a woman as Deputy Governor of Bangladesh Bank. As a result, one of the present Deputy Governors of Bangladesh Bank is woman.

BWCCI also had raised voices for inclusion of women in the board of public institutions. To mention some BWCCI Founder has been appointed as the Director of Sonali Bank, BWCCI President as one of the board member of Janata Bank and Vice President as the Director of Agrani Bank.

BWCCIs Director Farzana Chowdhury, MD of Green Delta Insurance Company.

BWCCIs Ex-Director selected as Director of MIDAS.

The above-mentioned achievements are just few of the many achievements. There are more members in the public administration in different levels and corners. As it works for women entrepreneurship throughout the country, thus making scope for employment in the nation which is one of the root prevailing problems. There should be more fund allocation for BWCCI in the upcoming and future budget so that BWCCI can carry no its work more extensively.

(ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS)

(RECOMMENDATIONS)

(CONCLUSION)

In the report, we wanted to find out the role of BWCCI in the economy of Bangladesh. We found out that the chamber works tremendously for women. The report we prepared was harder than what we thought before. We had a real life experience about the chamber, which was a great and hard experience for us. However, due to tremendous efforts of the team members and the team spirit made it a boneless fish for us.

We had quite a lot of idea about other chambers but BWCCI was something new to know about and explore. The experience of the interview with the secretary was something new and innovative.

We had the best of our experience preparing the report. Our sincere thanks to our course teacher Ms.Tahmina Rita Anika, Assistant Professor, Department of Management Studies, Jagannath University, for such a wonderful thought. We had a chance to prove and judge ourselves where we stand.

Our sincere thanks to Mr.Sayed Sultan Chand, Secretary, BWCCI for giving us his precious time from his busy schedule. Without having, an appointment with him this report would not have taken its present form.

As Business Faculty students, we will have more such reports in future. We hope that our further reports will also be as interesting as this.

All the information provided in this report is to the best of our knowledge. However, we prepared this report with full attention and accuracy, any mistakes in this report is apologized.

(BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFRENCE)

All the information given in this report has been collected from relevant and dependable sources. The information given in this report is to the best of our knowledge. We collected the information from the BWCCI website. The description of our information sources are as under:

Sl No

LINKS

1.

www.bwcci-bd.org/objectives

2.

www.bwcci-bd.org

3.

www.bwcci-bd.org/achievements

www.facebook.com/bwcci-bd

NAME OF THE DESIGNATED PERSON

APPOINTME-NT ON

Mr.Sayed Sultan Chand

Secretary,

Bangladesh Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry

Gulshan Grace, Apt: 2C(1st Floor)

House:8, Block: CWS(C)

South Avenue, Gulshan-1

Dhaka-1212, Bangladesh.

Mobile: +88 01971 522 858

E-mail: ssultan@bwcci-bd.org

09:15 AM

May 10, 2015

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