Bangladesh bourses become the first to brave Y2K bug

The country's bourses successfully conducted automated live transactions yesterday braving the much-feared and talked-about millennium bug to become the world's first stock exchanges to trade in the new millennium.

Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) was the first bourse to begin trading at 10:00 am (0400 GMT) while the Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) followed just 15 minutes later.

The brokers' workstations flashed with greetings hailing the new millennium. At DSE, the Chittagong Cement Clinker shares became the first stocks to be traded at Tk 840 per share soon after the transactions began.

"We have successfully rolled over to the new millennium," Rakibur Rahman, the delighted DSE Chairman told the Daily Star.

"We were the only stock exchange on the globe to operate through the vulnerable period. No one else dared to become the first Y2K bug victim," Rahman said.

"Our success has raised the prestige of the entire nation before the world," he said, adding "the whole world was watching us closely."

Even foreign media focused on DSE and interviewed its chairman about the risks involved in trading on the first millennium day.

The chairman said that despite being compliant, apprehensions dominated the brokers. But they breathed a sigh of relief as everything went fine and finally the success was toasted at the close of the trading hours at 1:45 pm.

The DSE Chief Executive Officer GQ Chowdhury said that the fire alarm and the punch-card machine, restricting access to the server room of the bourse, were not Y2K-compliant.

"We had deactivated the non-complaint machines and again activated them later only to find them functioning smoothly," the CEO said.

In order to guard against any viruses which were expected to be floated on the Internet on January 1, 2000, the bourses issued circulars to all members to check their respective servers and workstations and advised them to avoid downloading any suspicious files from the Internet till January 1, the CEO said.

The stock exchanges were, however, ready to revert to the mock manual 'open outcry system', a method now considered 'age-old' since both the bourses of the country have gone online.

The possible millennium problems could be averted mainly due to full compliance of the Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB), one DSE councilor said.