CFC – New SME initiative to boost shoemaking industry of Rajshahi’s Kaluhati village
SME Foundation established a Common Facility Centre (CFC) for the shoemakers of Kaluhati village in Rajshahi’s Charghat upazila on Friday. The CFC, set up on a 3000 square-feet site at the village, was provided with 13 state-of-the-art machines for leather cutting, stitching, and finishing, said Dr Md Mafizur Rahman, Managing Director of SME Foundation. The facility would help the shoemakers to improve the quality of their products using modern technologies, he said. “Our dependence on imported leather goods will be lessened once the initiative turns out a success,” said Dr Rahman. The initiative is the first of its kind in the country, said Md Shohrub Hossain, Charghat upazila Nirbahi officer. Some 85 shoemaking entrepreneurs and 500 labourers dependent on them would directly get benefit from the CFC, built at a cost of Tk one crore, he said adding that the facility will function by a committee headed by him. The shoemakers believe that the CFC will remarkably improve their lives b