‘How will we buy food?’: Bangladesh small businesses reel under storm clouds of pandemic

They are stuck at home and running out of savings, as the shops and malls remained closed during Ramadan, the biggest season of trading.

“We are ruined! Bleeding each moment!” Helal Uddin, the president of Bangladesh Shop Owners’ Association, told bdnews24.com.

“We aren’t thinking about losses. We are worried about how we will be able to buy food for our families, children after a month or two,” he said, with desperation in his voice.

The traders were targeting a 15 to 20 percent growth in turnover, which was worth Tk 1 trillion during Ramadan last year, according to the association.

“Everything is gone now. How will we pay rents and pay back bank loans? What will happen to the workers’ salaries and festival allowances? How will we survive?” wondered Lipi Khandker, the proprietor of fashion house Bibiana.

She said they had completed 75 percent of the preparation for the Eid business.

“Now we are getting very few orders online, but these will not be enough to continue business. We are heading towards an uncertain future.”

Helal said concerns over losses are giving owners of 5.6 million shops across Bangladesh sleepless nights while the lockdowns have spelled misery for their employees, most of whom are aged between 15 and 20.

Two-thirds of their annual trade are reliant on Eid-ul-Fitr and Bengali New Year, he said.

“We are worried because there is no certainty that the situation will improve if trading resumes in a month or two. Because people’s earnings have dried up. They don’t have money to spend,” Helal said.

He demanded immediate support from the government to help them ride out the storm.

“I don’t know why the government is thinking only about big businesses, and not us. It is not thinking about 11.5 million people who are ‘starving’,” he said.

AB Mirza Azizul Islam, a former caretaker government adviser, also pointed out that the people are losing their purchasing power.

“The severity of the damage may not be calculated now, but anyone can guess that it will be devastating,” he said.

Besides fashion products, sale of commodities, electronic goods, furniture, cars, and many other products peaks during Eid while transactions in every sector from travel to housing rises.

“But COVID-19 is ravaging the world economy and it is heavily impacting Bangladesh as well,” Mirza Azizul said.

“Our economy is going to face a really big crisis,” he added.

Besides the traders, the coronavirus crisis has brought disaster to hundreds of thousands of workers involved in the informal domestic fashion industry – from design and embroidery to production and delivery.

According to Fashion Udyog, the association of the businesses in the sector, around 500,000 people directly depend on the industry that profits mostly from the Eid trade and uses the money to sustain in the rest of the year.

“Who will pay for products that have already been made? Who will take responsibility for the products being made now?” asked the association’s Senior Vice-President Soumik Das, who runs fashion brand Rang.

The traders invest about Tk 65 billion in Baishakh and Eid seasons combined, according to him.

“What’s happening now is a catastrophe. We never imagined something as disastrous as this would come,” he said.

(BDN24)