Dhaka, September 7:

In an effort to cope with soaring oil prices and deficiency in electricity generation, Bangladesh has re-introduced a five-day week from September 9. Presently Friday is the weekly holiday for all government, semi-government and autonomous offices but now Saturday too will be a holiday from the current week, a senior official at the ministry of establishment said. “The cabinet at its regular meeting on Monday night approved the changes in weekly holidays,” the official said.

Consequently, office hours have been increased by one hour on weekdays and will now be from 9.00 am to 5.00 pm instead of 4.00 pm. At the meeting, a number of mechanisms including compulsory shutdown of markets and shopping malls in the evening, switching on streetlights on one side of the roads and control over the use of government vehicles were discussed to control power and energy consumption. While economists and businessmen favour a five-day week, they said giving a holiday on Saturday would have a serious impact on the economy and foreign trade as most other countries observed weekly holidays on Saturday and Sunday. The government decision would cut off communication with other countries for three days a week, they pointed out. Weekly holidays were extended to two days in June 1997 by the then government.