Call in parliament for Hasina’s intervention to rescue sinking stock market

A Jatiya Party MP has urged Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in parliament to intervene and save the capital market from a worst slump that has hit it in a decade.

The situation in the market has forced small investors on to the street. They defied police obstacles to demonstrate outside the Dhaka Stock Exchange in Motijheel on Tuesday when the main index dropped below the base value.

Kazi Firoz Rashid MP raised the issue during an unscheduled discussion in parliament on Wednesday.

“All the newspapers are publishing reports about the share market. Today’s lead news was – ‘The stock market is floored’. The investors are demonstrating,” he said.

“Why so? The analysts blame a lack of good governance while the investors do not have any confidence in the market. It’s an ominous sign for the market,” Firoz Rahsid said.

“The market may rebound if the prime minister intervenes,” the opposition MP and former minister of the Awami League-led coalition government suggested.

He expressed ire at the listing of “weak” companies by the regulator Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission, identifying it as “the only reason” behind the situation.

“These companies are trading below their face value. A Tk 10 share had been traded at Tk 100 and now the price has dropped to Tk 15. The investors have gone broke,” Rashid said.

“Isn’t there anyone to see us?” the Jatiya Party leader, who has a brokerage house named after him, quoted some investors as asking him. “They requested me to raise the issue in parliament,” he said.

BNP MP Harunur Rashid said they get “shocked” when any minister says there is “no crisis while devastated small investors are demonstrating”.

“Foreign investors are reportedly leaving, but we are celebrating Mujib Barsha and economic growth. What a mess the economy is in now when we are achieving so much development, building so many massive structures,” he added.

Rumeen Farhana, the BNP MP from seats reserved for women, said: “The Awami League being in power and the share market in ruins are synonymous. The market has crashed again after the debacles of 1996 and 2010.

“Hundreds of thousands of people have been made bankrupt. Tens of billions of takas have been embezzled,” she said.