Business Desk :
Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) on Tuesday urged the authorities concerned to strengthen country’s private sector for sustaining economic growth aimed coronavirus pandemic.
“The coronavirus outbreak has profound impact on global economy and human lives worldwide. This outbreak has already triggered the fear of global recession affecting industrial production, global supply chain, aviation and hospitability industry, retail business, demand for products and services and jobs,” said DCCI through a press release.
Meanwhile, UNCTAD estimated global growth would slow down maximum 1.5 percent in 2020 and ILO warned about 25 million jobs could be lost worldwide due to outbreak. ADB predicted earlier that Bangladesh economy may contract by 1.1 of GDP with 894,930 job loss. Bangladesh has already experienced a disruption of supply chain of RMG industry, Leather and Pharmaceutical Industry, SME, tourism and aviation.
The geo-economic meltdown also affected the major export destinations of Bangladesh like European Union (EU), USA, UK and Canada. To tackle the outbreak, many EU countries and other part of the world have enforced lock-down which results into shut-down of high-street retail businesses and trade network to the large extent.
DCCI requests Bangladesh Bank to create an emergency fund with 1 percent interest using foreign exchange reserve to support the financially stressed businesses for paying salary of their workforce. In addition, Bangladesh Bank can waive bank interest of affected export oriented manufacturing sectors for next one year.
