Although the plight of the readymade garment (RMG) sector has stolen the limelight, non-RMG industries have also witnessed unprecedented shipment woes, including cancellation of bookings, due to the upheavals over the past week.
Violence centring the quota reform protests, a nationwide curfew imposed by the government and a five-day internet blackout brought nearly all economic activities to a standstill, including at the country’s premier seaport in Chattogram.
Although the country’s main port has become fully operational, non-RMG exporters alleged that they had been getting less priority in booking shipments despite accounting for around 17 percent of the country’s exports and playing a big role in export diversification.
Against this backdrop, their shipments will be delayed, which will not only create an image crisis but also result in demurrage and cause them to sell products at discounted rates, they said.
“We had to cancel some export consignments due to violence and curfew while the internet outage turned the port practically non-functional,” said Kamruzzaman Kamal, director of marketing at Pran-RFL Group, which exports around 900 varieties of food and non-food products to 145 countries.
“At the same time, we could not carry on correspondence with our buyers due to the internet outage”, he said, adding that no one anticipated that the economy would suffer such a sudden shock.
Kamal added that they were accustomed to email communications with buyers and that there was little scope for manual correspondence. As such, regular export activities were severely hampered.
He also said the disruption would affect at least 30 percent of their planned annual exports.
Zahangir Alam, chief financial officer at Square Pharmaceuticals, said it was an unpleasant experience as the distribution of medicines was affected, which forced them to manually issue invoices to deliver products.
But he added that they did not face much trouble as their export quantity is nominal compared to sales in the domestic market.
According to him, the company exports only around 4 percent of its annual output. So, the impact in the export segment was insignificant.
However, the experience for Beximco Pharmaceuticals was quite the opposite.
Wasim Haider, senior manager (international marketing) at Beximco Pharmaceuticals, said all exports had been suspended since July 18.
He said both the domestic and global supply chains were dependent on the internet and that the blackout had seriously hampered trade.
He further said bookings for the shipment of four consignments of goods had to be cancelled in the past 10 days and that keeping in touch with clients over the phone was proving troublesome, especially regarding shipment and payment details.
Md Saiful Islam, managing director of Picard Bangladesh, which exports leather products, said the weeklong disruption hindered both production and shipments.
Islam said he would be compelled to offer discounts from 10 percent to 40 percent on his products due to delays in shipment as those are seasonal products.
But it varies depending on the buyer and product, he said, adding that buyers usually seek discounts if a shipment is delayed by just a couple of weeks.
According to Islam, the unprecedented disruption caused buyers to raise questions about the capacity of manufacturers, infrastructure, social security, and political stability, which are issues that have not been flagged in the past five to six years.
Daily star
