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Hartal fears grip shop owners as sales dip

Sohel Parvez
Shop owners are not happy over the forced holidays as many have not recorded any sales yet due to hartals for seven days this month.
Various expenses, like shop space rent, salaries for sales staff, electricity bills and repayment of bank loans for some, remain intact, increasing concerns for shop owners as their financial obligations pile up.
"It will be tougher for us to repay bank loans for the recurrent hartals. How can we pay the instalments against loans and pay salaries of our employees if we have to keep our shops closed?" said Faisal Uddin, owner of Saudiya Enterprise, a cormgated iron sheet seller.
He kept his shop at Nayabazar in Dhaka closed for the first two days of the current spell of shutdown. He, however, opened his shop at midday on Tuesday with hopes of getting some customers.
Not even one customer came to his shop and so he shut it again after just two hours.
"It has become a forced holiday for us. Our sales staff went home in their villages and we have to stay at our residence But such a holiday is not expected," he said.
Except for a few like Saudiya Enterprise, stores on the French Road, English Road and electrical appliance wholesale markets at Nawabpur were all shut on Tuesday for a thin presence of customers.
Last week, retailers, hawkers and roadside vendors could keep their shops open for only four days, with a similar story the week before that.
Most shops in Dhaka, which account for 11 percent of the 26 lakh stores across the country, remain closed during shutdown,
according to Bangladesh Shop Owners Association.
" It seems hartal is being enforced against the retail and transport sectors," said SA Quader Keron, the association's secretary general.
On a normal day, the shops record sales worth Tk .3,000 crore, 15-20 percent of which is profit. "Because of continued hartals, profits are a far cry, as we don't have any sales."
"A huge portion of retailers will also have to pay a package VAT ofTk 12,000 to the government, regardless of sales, in addition to other expenses."
Ninety percent of the shops run with small capitals and it becomes difficult to bear the fixed expenses as goods remain stacked on shelves for retailers and in godowns for wholesalers, he said.
" If the shutdown continues, we will have no alternative but to sack workers," Keron said, adding that around 75 lakh people work in retail in Bangladesh.
The ongoing political situation has cast a shadow on trading activities at a time when growth of wholesale and retail trade, which accounts for 14 percent of the economy, has slowed.
The sector grew 4.69 percent in fiscal 2012-2013, down from 5.63 percent the previous year, according to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.
"We are the bridge between producers and consumers. If we cannot sell, the industries will suffer," Keron said.
Estimates of sales losses during shutdowns vary. A study, conducted by Nasreen Khundker in favour UNDP in 2005, showed that small entrepreneurs lose 50-60 percent business on hartal days. FROM PAGE Bl
Earlier this year, Dhaka Ghamber of Commerce and Industry estimated that retailers and wholesalers lose sales worth Tk 600 crore a day.
"Customers hardly come for fear of violence," said Mohammad Neel, owner of traditional sari store Aanchal in Gulistan, on the second day of hartal this week.
He said sales dipped toTk 500 on the first day of hartal this week fromTk 16,000 on Saturday. On Monday, he barely loggedTk 1,500.
"It is a terrible situation. Sales are so low that I become tense every time I look at the accounts," he said.
He fears it would be difficult for him to
manage the monthly fixed cost for the store ofTk 45,000.
In addition to retailers, hawkers and roadside vendors have also taken a hit for the recent political situation.
Mahmudul Hasan, a roadside shoe vendor at Sonargaon intersection, said he did not open his makeshift store during last week's hartal. But this week, he could not afford to sit idle.
Sales have fallen by half, said Hasan, who buys shoes on credit from suppliers and footwear makers.
"Payment to the factory owner will be delayed this time, although they have already started giving me re