Economic Reporter :
The government has decided to keep the social communication media, facebook, closed for a few more days with a view to identifying the terrorists across the country.
Sources said the home ministry will direct the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) to open facebook after holding a meeting with law enforcing agencies and taking suggestions from Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in this regard. The ministry, however, did not clarify for how long the site will be kept closed.
In this backdrop, the e-Commerce Association of Bangladesh (e-CAB) has urged Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to lift the bar on Facebook and other social networking sites for the sake of their business.
They have placed the urge though a press release on Thursday evening saying 50 to 60 percent of their business was being affected since the last ten days as most of their business is run through online social media especially Facebook.
According to e-CAB, online business is an estimated Tk 200 crore market.
Terming the prime minister as the founder of digital Bangladesh, e-CAB said, what she did for e-commerce is undoubtedly an important part of the digitization process.
“That’s why e-CAB requested to lift the ban on all social media for the sake of survival of this sector,” said the press release signed by the organization’s acting general secretary Rezwanul Haque Jami.
Directly or indirectly around one lakh people are related with their business from the e-payment gateway, courier services, call centers and whole sellers, e-CAB said.
Around 1,500 e-commerce initiatives with more than 3,000 Facebook commerce initiatives are active in the country, informed the organisation.
