ormer and current presidents of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry held a meeting on Wednesday on a united move of all businesspeople against ‘the political stalemate.’
Former FBCCI presidents including Annisul Huq, Mir Nasir Hossain, Salman F Rahman, Akram Hossain, MA Kashem and Mahbubur Rahman amd former FBCCI administrator Syed Manzur Elahi along with the incumbent president AK Azad held the ‘informal’ meeting at the Westin Hotel in the evening.
‘This was our [former presidents and incumbent chief of FBCCI] second meeting to discuss about the country’s political situation and the problems the
business people facing. Old presidents initiated the move and we held the first meeting last week ,’ Annisul told New Age on Wednesday night.
Former president Abdul Awal Mintoo and Akhteruzzaman Babu, who were present at the first meeting, were not at Wednesday’s meeting, he said.
He said that they had been worried about the general strikes and political confrontation. ‘Strikes and general strikes are causing economic losses to the country. We sat to discuss how to find a solution to economic losses because of confrontational politics,’ he said.
Annisul said that the incumbent FBCCI president was requested to hold a broader meeting with all the chambers to chalk up a plan on how to tackle the situation. ‘We will sit again, may be in next week, with all businesspeople,’ he said adding that they would sit with political parties, if required.
In the last two weeks, the BNP-led alliance and the ruling Awami League-led alliance are in confrontation over the disappearance of the BNP’s organising secretary M Ilias Ali.
The BNP enforced general strikes in two spells demanding that the government should release Ilias blaming the government for his disappearance while the government and the Awami League took a hard line against the opposition.
Some of the business leaders, however, urged alternatives to general strikes to help keep the economy moving.
Asked whether they had discussed the causes of the current general strikes, Annisul said that they had discussed the economic losses caused by the
strikes.
Asked whether they were forging a unity against general strike, the former FBCCI president said, ‘We do not want any more general strikes. We want a bigger unity against strikes and political confrontations.’
Another former FBCCI president, however, said that they had discussed the situation of political confrontations in a broader perspective.
‘It is not the matter of the BNP and the Awami League. We are businesspeople and we mean business. We want to see an end to the political stalemate between the two parties,’ he said.
AK Azad told New Age that they would soon hold a meeting with all FBCCI members to find out a solution to the present crisis.