Chaired by Farooq Sobhan, president of BEI, the roundtable is a part of the dialogue series on CSR that the CSR Centre organises every month to hear the perspectives of key stakeholders and raise awareness on CSR practices.

At the 17th roundtable, Arshad Hossain Siddiqui, director of ECOTA Fair Trade Forum (ETF), made a presentation on fair trade principles.

ETF is a networking and coordinating body of Small and Medium Fair Trade Enterprises of Bangladesh.

ETF works with 115,000 artisans through its member organizations and works for the promotion and realisation of fair trade principles for the betterment of women, indigenous community and physically challenged people.

Siddiqui said fair trade supports bottom up development, strengthens grassroots system of operation and ensures that income goes directly to the poor.

While discussing the challenges to fair trade practices, he said some of the key challenges are lack of working capital, lack of alternative market intelligence, competition from other Asian countries and lack of proper intermediary technology.