Mobile handset traders will not repay bank loans amid protest against NEIR: Trade body

The Mobile Business Community Bangladesh (MBCB) on Saturday announced handset traders will not pay bank loan installments as their “store shutdown movement” has crimped business income.

The shutdown movement is being waged in protest against the government’s roll-out of the NEIR system, which is aimed at preventing the continued supply of unregistered and stolen phones.

Mobile phone sellers are "forced to suspend bank loan repayments" as they have kept their businesses shut -- and the government has not attempted to persuade them into reopening the stores by meeting their “logical demands in an acceptable manner,” MBCB said in a statement.

The country’s private and government commercial banks have for decades invested heavily in the mobile retail market. The sector now has thousands of crores in bank loans, the statement read.

The banks disbursed the loans after conducting thorough legal background checks, implying the sector’s legitimate status, the statement said.

The bank loans refute the claims that the retail sector is a “grey market,” MBCB added in the statement.