Dhaka, March 15 -- The business situation at this year's Amar Ekushey Book Fair has been described as even worse than the pandemic-affected fair of 2021, with around 90 percent of participating publishers failing to recover even their initial stall construction costs.

The information was revealed on Saturday afternoon at an emergency press conference organized by the publishers' platform Prokashok Oikko at the Poet Shamsur Rahman Seminar Room of the Bangla Academy.

Publishers said that nearly 30 percent of the participating publishers could not sell books worth even Tk 5,000 during the fair.

A total of 549 publishing houses took part in this year's book fair-81 at the Bangla Academy premises and 468 at the Suhrawardy Udyan. Compared to...