Bangladesh has to match with the growth of other Asian economies and there is no way on part of this country to achieve its goals if 50 percent of its population -- the women folk -- are not given opportunities to live up to their full potentials, they added.

The Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) organised the workshop on 'Enabling Environment for Women Entrepreneurship Development' in cooperation with the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) -- an affiliate of the US Chamber of Commerce, Washington DC, USA -- held at the DCCI auditorium in Dhaka.

Speaking at the workshop as chief guest Hua Du, officer-in-charge of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), said ADB highly emphasise on promoting women entrepreneurship here.

She identified networking and access to finance and information sharing very important issues to improve the ability of women entrepreneurs.

Rokia A Rahman, former advisor to the caretaker government and president of Women Entrepreneurs' Association, Bangladesh (WEA), spoke at the workshop as special guest.

Rahman observed women in policy making is very important and said, "We need women to reach high positions like the director of a bank." Chambers still remain men's club and women need to join and work there, she added.

It was considered a taboo for women to come into business two decades ago but it has changed and women entrepreneurship has grown tremendously, she added.

Chairing the workshop, DCCI President Sayeeful Islam said 13 million women have borrowed US$ 1.3 billion dollars under the micro credit scheme in Bangladesh and their performance in repayment has been rated excellent.

"How much favour has the Ministry of Womens' Affairs done to women in business? How many laws could the women members of the parliament formulate to support women entrepreneurship ?" he asked, noting the answer is possibly not very encouraging.

Ferdausi Sultana, social and gender development specialist of ADB, presented a keynote paper on the topic. ADB supports the women entrepreneurs under small and medium enterprise development projects, she said mentioning agribusiness development project is also under process.

Participating in the discussion, women entrepreneurs stressed the need for strengthening the role of Ministry of Women Affairs.

It is very difficult to get finance from banks, said a women entrepreneur. Describing her experience, she mentioned it is a complicated process and sometimes it takes a long time to get finance from the banks, which discourages the women.