Frozen food exporters Tuesday placed several demands, including eight-year extension of a deadline for paying off term loans free of interest to recoup losses caused by devaluation of Euro and Rouble against Dollar as well as ongoing political turmoil.
They also demanded fresh loans equivalent to Tk 6.0 billion, the amount of losses the exporters suffered due to the ongoing political unrest, to overcome the liquidity crisis facing by the sector.
Bangladesh Frozen Foods Exporters Association (BFFEA) made demands at a press conference on "countrywide blockade and hartal and its impact on the frozen food sector" at its office in the city.
Newly elected BFFEA President SM Amzad Hossain said: "Foreign buyers are cancelling two-third orders of frozen foods and the rest renegotiated to get L/Cs."
"Buyers are withdrawing export orders as they think that they will not get shipment in due time because of political turmoil. They shifting orders to other countries," he said.
The exporters said the price of black tiger dropped by around 40 per cent due to continual devaluation of Euro and Rouble against Dollar in a last couple of months.
Mr Hossain said: "We are not getting sufficient raw materials (black tiger and fresh water prawn) for the processing plants due to supply disruption caused by transport blockade. We can utilise only 13 per cent capacity of the processing plants."
Now around 11,000 tonnes of shrimps worth Tk 15 billion are stockpiled in several fish processing plants across the country due to slowdown in exports. Shrimp exporters also demanded enhancement of existing cash incentives on frozen foods to 25 per cent from existing 10 per cent with retrospective effect from July, 2014.
Besides, they demanded that the government provide cash incentives on actual invoice value and withdrawal of existing ceiling on the same.
They also demanded extension of the instalment-payment deadline for term loans for next eight years from March, 2015 with interest-free facility and taking rescheduling measures for allowing quarterly instalments to pay back loans.
Frozen food exporters demanded loan rescheduling facilities above Tk 5 billion from January 2015 under similar condition as offered by the government.
They urged the government to relax the loan classification provision with six months from existing three months.
BFFEA vice president Md Golam Mostafa and most of newly elected directors of the association were present.
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BFFEA demands fresh loans to overcome liquidity crisis
FE Report | Published: March 04, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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