Turnout of shoppers at different malls in the port city is rising, as the biggest religious festival for Muslims, Eid-ul-Fitr, comes closer. People of all ages are seen thronging the malls even till midnight.

But traders in the city are not happy with their sales this year.

Arif Mohammad Faiz, a salesperson at Rich Manz at Sanmar Ocean City, a shopping mall, said his shop's turnover decreased to a great extent with the rise in prices of different products.

“We had an average turnover of Tk 1 lakh per day last year, which plummeted to Tk 30,000 to Tk 40,000 this year,” Faiz said.

He held the devaluation of the local currency against dollar responsible for the price hike of products. The prices of imported products also increased this reason, he said.

Md Daulat, proprietor of Foot Mark, a footwear shop at Sanmar, said sales in his shop decreased by 40 percent this year compared to that in last year.

People are suffering from a financial crisis due to the stockmarket debacle, which has eroded people's purchasing capacity, he said.

Moreover, condition of the connecting roads to the city from different upazilas is very bad, which discourages people living in the suburban areas to come to the city for shopping, Daulat said.

To attract customers, different shopping malls in the city have launched special offers for the upcoming Eid. Ameen Centre is one of the malls which came up with a month-long shopping festival on the very first day of Ramadan with mega prizes of LCD televisions, laptops and refrigerators.

Rejaul Karim Sajjad, press secretary of Ameen Centre Traders' Association, said he is satisfied with the sales at the mall of 200 shops so far this season. “Our mall is now abuzz with shoppers.”

Bipani Bitan, popularly known as New Market, is the oldest posh shopping mall in Chittagong. Rekha Alam, a resident of Khulshi area, was found shopping with her husband at the mall.

At her tender ages, Rekha used to come to the mall with her parents for shopping, she said. "When

I was a student of Government City College in the vicinity of the mall, I used to come here with friends. And now my husband is accompanying me.”

Rekha bought a sari for herself and a panjabi for her husband and wanted to buy another sari for her sister-in-law. She said she does not think about prices while buying the outfits of her choices.

Prima Sari Fashion also experienced a fall of 30 percent in sales this year, according to Md Hasan, a salesperson at the shop that sells saris, including jamdani, silk and katan, worth between Tk 1,000 and Tk 7,000.

Mohammad Sagir, president of Bipani Bitan Merchants Welfare Committee, said sales and the number of customers are increas-

ing at the mall as Eid nears.

Bipani Bitan of 500 shops was the first shopping mall in the port city to declare Eid shopping festival with mega prizes in 1995, Sagir said.

Eid shoppers are also crowding Bay Shopping Centre, located near the Chittagong Export Processing Zone (CEPZ). Traders at the mall keep in their shops the dresses that match the financial condition of the workers of the CEPZ who are its regular customers.

Singapore Bangkok Market is another mall with 302 shops in the city that was once reputed for foreign items. Terri Bazar, a wholesale market for different types of readymade garments, is doing brisk business this season, traders said.