Bourses change trading hours

Dhaka Stock Exchange and Chittagong Stock Exchange have set a new schedule of trading hours as the government has extended restrictions on people's movement and changed the banking hours.

According to the new decision of bourses, share trading will continue from 10am till 1pm instead of 10:30am to 1:30pm.

Recently, the government has declared 45 areas in Dhaka city as red zones where the rate of novel coronavirus infection is high.

The government has also extended the restrictions on people's movement till June 30 to curb the spread of the virus in the country.

According to government restrictions, the central bank has instructed the banks to keep their branches in the red zones closed.

If the health department, the city corporation or district authorities instruct to open branches at the red zones, they will remain open with a limited number of workers from 10am to 12.30pm.

However, bankers have to stay at those branches till 1.30pm for the completion of official tasks.

But if a bank's head office or principal branch is located in a red zone, it has to remain open till 4pm so that other branches can complete their regular transactions uninterruptedly.

If Motijheel and Dilkusha areas in Dhaka city and Agrabad and Khatungonj in Chattogram are labelled as red zones, the bank branches in those areas have to remain open for transactions from 10am to 2pm, and bankers have to stay at branches till 3pm.

However, the bank branches in yellow and green zones will remain open from 10am to 2pm as per the instructions from the central bank, and bankers have to stay at offices till 4pm.