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Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are one of the major sources of economic growth. Recent economic growth and development of Bangladesh have been highly linked with the flourishment of SMEs. Access to formal finance is one of the major impediments for the growth of SMEs. The recent economic slowdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic causes the SMEs to suffer to remain in the business. Supply chain disruption, unsold products, lack of product demand, liquidity crisis become more severe in this case. The government of Bangladesh is trying to help SMEs by providing funds through the banking sector but previous studies show the banking sector is not as effective for SME financing. Besides recent banking sector performance seems to be very poor. Therefore, to ensure the best use of funds we need an alternative channel. Mico-Finance Institutions (MFIs) can play a better role in this case. Several studies have shown microfinance was a successful tool to recover small businesses after natural disasters. This paper aims to address the role of microfinance to post-disaster SME financing and identifies the current gap between these two.

Excessive consumption of fossil fuel leading to high environmental cost and the possibility of exhaustion of these nonrenewable energies is a compelling man to switch to alternative energy sources. These resources include renewable energies that are clean and sustainable. Renewable energy is such energy sources that are naturally replenished and are abundantly available. These energy sources beget from solar energy, wind, geothermal and hydro-power plants, etc. Therefore, instead of growing reliance on declining underground resources (fossil fuel resources), it must invest in the development of renewable energy utilization. This paper aims to provide renewable energy consumption patterns, in the long run, incorporating economic growth and fossil fuel energy consumption. In this analysis four, South Asian counties have been taken. These are Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri-Lanka. By analyzing the data from 1990 -2014 with the Johansen Co-integration Method, renewable energy consumption is negatively related to economic growth (except India), whereas fossil fuel energy consumption is increasing with economic growth in the long run for the mentioned South Asian counties. Considering the climate issues, we addressed the opportunities and challenges providing some policy recommendations to increase renewable energy consumption.

This paper aims to analyze the performance of non-financial SOEs and seeks possible remedial for the problems. State-owned enterprises play a vital role in Bangladesh. After the liberation war in 1971, the Bangladesh government had taken extensive measurements to nationalize some enterprises but due to lack to profitability, accountability, poor management, corruption caused these enterprises to fail in providing enough support to our economy. Bangladesh government has initiated the “Privatization of Public Enterprises” in a massive scale but the performance of these SOEs have not been improved. There are 49 non-financial SOEs in Bangladesh. These non-financial SOEs are classified under seven major sectors- industry, utility, transportation and communication, trade, agriculture, construction, and service. Among these seven major sectors, the service and utility sector have the highest contribution to the public exchequer. Most of the enterprises are facing loss (i.e. mainly industrial sector SOEs) and some others have vulnerable performance. The government is providing a huge subsidy, but the overall performance has not been improved. These SOEs need a reformation in cost minimization, management system, corruption prevention, and most importantly a proper effective policy formulation.