The country’s businessmen have stressed on expanding regional and international cooperation to fight back the coronavirus outbreak. They said duty to face the natural calamity does not belong to China alone, it should be fought unitedly through global initiatives.
Warning that the country would face huge losses if a wrong decision is taken, they said ‘closing the door policy’ at this moment would not bring any value. Meanwhile, traders said, the import process is already being hampered due to various prohibitions, imposed both by Bangladesh and Chinese governments to tackle the outbreak. Local traders who depend on imported raw materials from China for production of a good number of commodities are being affected. It has also triggered price hike of different products.
Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industries (FBCCI) president Sheikh Fazle Fahim told Bangladesh Post that the sudden outbreak will affect the overall supply chain of the country. “Those who have opened LCs would not get their raw materials in time as their shipments would be delayed,” he said, adding that 25 percent raw materials for the industrial sector comes from China.
Informing that FBCCI will sit with the Finance Ministry in this regard, he said, “We are going to ask for cooperation both from banks and the government. We would request the government not to identify businessmen by any terms during the crisis period.
He, at the same time, also stressed the need for creating new source of raw materials for the country’s industry. Senior vice president of Bangladesh-China Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCCI) ATM Azizul Akil on Friday told Bangladesh Post, “Based on the Chinese government information, we at first thought that the situation would change soon. But we have to hold more patience for coming out of the impact of the virus.”
Citing scarcity of raw materials and equipment inflicted by the outbreak, he said, “Chinese authorities run some big factories in our country, they also have investment in several projects. Some of the factories have already been forced to shut down due to scarcity of raw materials. Others are on the way to halt production.”
“In this situation, I think closing the door will not bring any value, rather we should expand our regional and international cooperation to handle the crisis. Otherwise, we have to face huge losses”, he further added. Besides price hike of essentials, the coronavirus has brought uncertainty to the scheduled works of some megaprojects also.
Export-import traders claimed all kinds of commercial activities, including import and export, are also being disrupted due to the sudden outbreak of the virus. According to BCCCI, the country would incur $2 billion trade losses, if the outbreak continues until the end of this month.
Businessmen said they are already facing scarcity of raw materials. They said, “We are afraid our factories would be shut down, due to unavailability of capital equipment. We are not being able to open new LC, technical experts are not coming, product shipments are also being cancelled.”
Contacted, Dr Selim Raihan, Professor of Department of Economics, Dhaka University and also director of the South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM) told Bangladesh Post, “We import quite a lot from China. These imports include raw materials for our RMG exports and domestic industries, consumer goods. The situation can lead to rise in prices of industrial raw materials, which will greatly affect our export. Also, prices of consumer goods will go up, which may create inflationary pressure and our mega projects may get affected”.
As per the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industries (FBCCI) statistics, in the recently concluded year, $13 billion bilateral trade was conducted between the two countries, mainly importing construction equipment, capital machinery, raw materials, different toys, and food items. Currently, all imports and exports are closed. Officials of the country have been given leave till February 10.
