Shop owners will need a lot of time to recover from losses

The students' movement for reforming the quota system in public jobs and the subsequent violence and curfew have adversely affected businesses, said Helal Uddin, president of Bangladesh Shop Owners Association.

It will take businesses a lot of time to recover, he said during an interview with The Daily Star over the phone yesterday.

Shops and shopping centres reopened on July 24 after four days of curfew but they hardly saw any sales, he said.

People have been suffering from high inflationary pressure for a long time and the present situation compounded their woes, said Helal.

The scenario necessitates people to give a lot of thought when making any purchase and limit themselves to availing just the bare necessities, he added.

Annual average inflation in Bangladesh surged to its highest level in 12 years in the just-concluded fiscal year despite easing in June, reflecting persistent erosion of real income and deterioration of living standards of low-income groups.

Annual inflation rose to 9.73 percent in fiscal year 2023-24, the highest since fiscal year 2011-12 when it was 10.62 percent, overshooting the government's target of limiting it to 7.5 percent, according to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.

Although there were breaks for a couple of hours every day during the curfew, people are not leaving their homes if it is not absolutely necessary, said Helal.    

"There was no business for 10-12 days. Many businesses will struggle to pay shop rent and staff salaries at the end of this month," he said.

The president of the shop owners' association said the government relaxed the curfew so that businesses could run their trade at least from morning till afternoon but there were barely any shoppers.

"As a result, there is growing concern among traders over how they would be able to run their businesses. If they end up being forced to take loans from banks, how will they repay the loans?" he asked.

Students launched the quota reform movement on July 1 citing that it discriminated against general students seeking to secure public jobs.

The demonstrators started to stage sit-ins on the roads at different areas blocking traffic since July 15 and law enforcers later tried to disperse them by force, causing the movement to turn chaotic and violent.

The government imposed the curfew for an indefinite period from midnight of July 19 and deployed the armed forces to contain violence.

The curfew was relaxed every day – for two hours on Saturday and Sunday, three hours on Monday and four hours on Tuesday. During this time, only shops selling essential food commodities stayed open. The curfew was relaxed for seven hours starting 10:00am on Wednesday and all types of shops opened for business in the morning.

It has been tough doing business over the past six months and it was even tougher for the traders to survive, said Helal.

"Our backs are against the wall. We demanded that the government take appropriate measures to bring relief to the lives of common people as soon as possible," he added.

"Because people are still gripped by a kind of fear. Shops and shopping centres will not return to normalcy until this is addressed," he said.