FAISALABAD: Obaid Babar, a trader of electronic products, is happy that the government has eased the lockdown restrictions for the traders.

However, at the same time he is gloomy as he will not earn enough money as customers are not visiting his establishment.

Babar imports electronic products from China and he had been doing a good business before the lockdown. The lockdown days hit his business badly as prices of the products decreased and buying behaviour of the customers also changed due to threat of coronavirus.

He told that Dawn that he dealt in products which people don’t need to perform their routine affairs. “I could not open my store for almost two months due to the lockdown and since resumption of business activities could not earn even a penny,” he said.

He said people were preferring to spend on the necessary items like food and clothes instead of electronic or luxury products. ‘’We are opening our store and consuming the electricity on the air conditioner and lights of the store which means I have to suffer more rather to earn.

“We had been contributing a lot to strengthen the economy prior to the Covid-19 but the government has no plan for the traders like me to ease their financial issues. My savings have almost drained due to the lockdown and I am finding ways to seek the products which would keep my business on track”, Babar said.

He said sensing the situation he had imported masks from China but people in Pakistan had also stopped purchasing the quality masks and were preferring the cheap ones.

The traders of fabric are also happy having permission to run their businesses, however, they are also complaining about the changing behaviour of the customers.

Nadeem, a fabric trader of Wakeelan Wali Gali, having scores of ladies suits shops, said we had designed different designs which we introduced in March. However, this time we could not launch our products due to lockdown.

Faisalabad is the textile capital of Pakistan earning much-needed forex. However, the lockdown has broken its entire textile chain and exporters had lost orders.

Published in Dawn, May 13th, 2020