Export-import disrupted as central bank server down for 4 days

Export-import activities were disrupted and dropped to half the usual over the weekend as the central bank's server went down on Thursday.

Many exporters failed to ship on time, while importers were unable to unload goods as they could not log into the Bangladesh Bank server from 25 October.

Chattogram's Kattali Textile Limited was scheduled to ship $1,36,000 worth of ready-made garments to the USA on Thursday, but the Agrabad branch of Islami Bank, which handles its banking, could not issue the export form as the central bank's server was down.

Now the exporter is in talks with its buyers to make the shipment at a later date, said Mohammad Yusuf, commercial manager of Kattali Textiles.

According to data from the Chattogram Customs, on average some 7,000-8,000 bill-of-entries used to be submitted every day before the pandemic hit. After a slow down of export-import activities during the lockdown, it again went up recently with 8,000-9,500 bill-of-entries being submitted per day.

On 24 November, a total of 9,003 bill-of-entries – 1,665 for import and 7,638 for export – were submitted. The effect of the central bank's server going down started to reflect in the number of bills of entries from the next day as 7,250 bills were submitted on 25 November.

On 26 November, only 4,446 bill-of-entries were submitted, which went further down on 27 November, when only 4,257 bills were logged. On 28 November, it further dropped to 4,019.

The data for 29 November was not available at the time of filing this report, but the customs officials said they are expecting the numbers to be still around half than usual.

"I am aware that the server has been slow since Wednesday. This is a temporary problem as we are migrating to new software," Bangladesh Bank Executive Director Md Sirajul Islam said.

He also added that the problem will be solved shortly.

Golam Rabbani, commercial executive of NS Dresses Limited, said, "We had scheduled shipment last Thursday, but due to server error of the Bangladesh Bank we could not work that day and Saturday. Later, on Sunday evening when the server was a bit active, we were able to issue the export form and make the shipment."

An official of the foreign investment department of Islami Bank's Agrabad branch said on condition of anonymity that the Bangladesh Bank Server had been down since Thursday.

"The server was the slowest on Sunday. Even today [Monday] the server problem has not been resolved. The export of many companies is being hampered as banks are unable to issue export forms," the official said.

Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association Director Rakibul Alam Chowdhury said, "We also had problems due to the server disruptions. However, we managed to fill in the export form manually as we did before and got the job done."

He said many banks opted for filing the export form manually after they had faced trouble logging into the central bank's server.

Mahbubul Alam, president of the Chittagong Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said, "It would have been helpful for the traders if the matter about server maintenance was notified in advance."

An official of Mutual Trust Bank said on condition of anonymity, "We are having trouble issuing LCs and other tasks related to export and import. Traders could benefit if they were given a heads up."