TBM Report
The FBCCI Reform Council has expressed deep institutional grievances against ongoing bureaucratic maneuvers aimed at undermining the democratic transition of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI). In a formal memorandum submitted to the Ministry of Commerce on Thursday, the council alleged that a certain vested quarter is trying to alter the consensus-backed ‘Trade Organizations Rules 2025’ to strip general body members of their direct voting rights. The leadership strongly urged the interim administration to bypass bureaucratic bottlenecks and facilitate immediate, transparent federation elections.
According to formal dockets, a high-level review session was convened on May 20, 2026, under the chairmanship of the Commerce Minister at the Ministry of Industries. Following the discussions, the Minister explicitly directed the administrative machinery to publish the proposed draft amendments on the Ministry’s official web portal to secure public feedback from relevant industry stakeholders. However, the Reform Council noted with profound regret that the Acting Secretary of the Commerce Ministry, Mr. Abdur Rahim Khan, bypassed ministerial protocols and unilaterally forwarded an unvetted, modified amendment framework to the Ministry of Law on June 4, 2026, without establishing stakeholder consensus.
The historical trajectory of the dispute reveals that the government previously appointed former Additional Secretary Mr. Hafizur Rahman as the FBCCI Administrator to restore structural sanity. Following a year of multi-channel synchronization, including physical and virtual conferences with over 140 affiliated chambers and associations, the Administrator successfully finalized the Rules of 2025 and announced an official election schedule. However, remnants of the autocratic regime reportedly filed a tactical lawsuit to temporarily freeze the electoral process. Subsequent high-level deliberations on October 24 and December 8, 2025, presided over by then-Commerce Secretary Mr. Mahbubur Rahman, had definitively sealed the clause ensuring that the FBCCI President, Vice-Presidents, and Executive Committee must be elected via direct ballot.
To preserve stability within the macroeconomic landscape, the FBCCI Reform Council has presented a core four-point mandate to the state infrastructure. Their definitive demands include: maintaining the statutory clause for direct voting by general body members; enforcing a strict two-term consecutive limit followed by a mandatory one-term cooling-off period; ensuring that individual chambers retain sovereign rights to be governed by their respective Articles of Association; and recalibrating the annual subscription fees to reasonable thresholds. Member Secretary Md. Zakir Hossain warned that since over 140 trade bodies have already safely concluded their internal operations based on the 2025 framework, any retrospective amendments by the secretariat will trigger systemic chaos across the country’s commercial sectors.
. In a formal memorandum submitted to the Ministry of Commerce on Thursday, the council alleged that a certain vested quarter is trying to alter the consensus-backed 'Trade Organizations Rules 2025' to strip general body members of their direct voting rights. The leadership strongly urged the interim administration to bypass bureaucratic bottlenecks and facilitate immediate, transparent federation elections.){kind=link}