The government has decided to change weekly holiday for land customs stations under Sylhet division to Sunday.
This is to facilitate trade and customs-related works with neighboring India.
Friday is weekly public holiday in Bangladesh while on Saturday the customs stations operate in a limited scale. But the Indian customs houses remain closed on Sundays.
The National Board of Revenue made the change due to this difference in weekly holiday between two countries as it was creating problems in bilateral trade activities.
The issue of weekly holidays in the region was first raised in February this year at the 10th meeting of the Joint Group of Customs (JGC) between Bangladesh and India in New Delhi.
The NBR later raised the issue in the 4th Joint Group of Customs (JGOC) commissioner-level meeting between two countries held in Customs Excise and VAT Commissionerate, Sylhet last week of July.
The meeting decided that both the countries would keep weekly holiday on Sunday for first six months from September to February and for next six months, the weekly holiday will be on Friday.
In Sylhet, export and import activities between two countries are held through a number of stations including four major land customs stations.
Perishable goods sometimes get damaged due to delay created by holiday difference, resulting in heavy loss for the traders, said officials.
They said the uniform weekly holiday in the region would benefit the traders, which would reduce delays in loading and unloading of goods, and also the operational costs.
“Bangladeshi traders cannot export goods to India on Sundays, India’s weekly holiday. Besides, the port activities are done in a limited scale on Saturdays,” Customs, Excise and VAT Commissioner in Sylhet AKM Nuruzzaman told Dhaka Tribune.
“The port activities were largely hampered in last 7-8 months due to the holiday difference,” he said hoping that the uniform holiday, effecting from September 1, would largely benefit exporters and importers of both countries.
Although the weekly holiday has been changed for customs offices, this will remain unchanged for banks.
But this would not, however, hamper trading, said the commissioner.
He said: “The assessment of the products cannot be done in one day. The traders do the assessment and complete the procedures in two-three days back before the delivery date.”
However, if any major problem is found due to the difference between customs house holidays and bank holidays, the authority may request some of the bank authorities to keep the respective branches open on Friday or Saturday, said AKM Nuruzzaman.