Sukanta Halder

Despite last year’s flying start with the production of hand sanitisers, state-owned Carew & Co is now struggling to find customers for 60,000 bottles of disinfectant it has in its store.

Anyone visiting Dhaka’s Bangshal road, known for spare parts of bikes and bicycles, would see a different scene.

Pahela Baishakh, the first day of Bangla new year, has once again brought no cheer to clothing and sweets retailers as the coronavirus pandemic has kept a majority of customers at bay for the second year in a row.

Walton is set to market the ventilators it has produced with the help of world-renowned medical equipment manufacturer Medtronic, a development that would help critical coronavirus patients to receive proper treatment.

The government is developing the country’s first industrial park for electrical and light engineering product manufacturers at a cost of Tk 300 crore in Munshiganj, which could herald a beginning to bring the highly scattered and unorganised industries under a single platform.

Small businesses, which are considered the lifeline of the economy, had hoped that the government would take care of them to help them stay afloat when it announced a countrywide lockdown and a gigantic stimulus package to protect the economy and the people from the coronavirus disease in March last year.

Small businesses, who are yet to recover from the devastating impacts of the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic in Bangladesh, are set to receive another blow after the government yesterday directed them to shutter shops to contain the surge in infections.

Clothing retailers are increasingly focusing on online sales amidst the surge in coronavirus infections as they seek to salvage their sales during the two biggest spending seasons--Pahela Baishakh and Eid-ul-Fitr.