CCCI biennial polls on Nov 1

The long-awaited biennial election for the board of directors of the Chittagong Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) for 2025-26 and 2026-27 will be held on November 1.

The CCCI Election Board, formed by the commerce ministry's Trade Organisation Wing, announced the schedule yesterday, over 11 months after an administrator took charge of the century-old trade body.

The CCCI issued a circular signed by the election board chief, Monowara Begum, also director of Local Government Division in Chattogram, in this regard.

The voting will be held at World Trade Center Chittagong.

According to the schedule, group and town association members will hold a meeting on August 30 to finalise their representatives.

The preliminary voter list will be published on September 7, followed by the final list on September 14.

Nomination forms will be available from September 14 to 20, with the submission deadline set for September 21. The preliminary list of candidates will be released on September 25 and the final list on October 5.

The last CCCI election, where votes were actually cast, was held in 2013. Since then, the trade body got leaders with no votes being cast for five consecutive terms.

Following the regime change last year, all 24 members of the CCCI executive board, including its president, resigned on September 2 following protests from business communities demanding a fresh voter list.

On September 9, Additional Divisional Commissioner (General) Muhammad Anowar Pasha was appointed administrator of the CCCI for an initial 120-day term to hold the election.

Later the term was extended twice.

His term was last extended by 60 days through a notification on July 3 this year and is set to end on September 8.