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Sev­er­al small busi­ness own­ers have giv­en on up on try­ing to use the bank­ing sec­tor to ob­tain for­eign ex­change for their busi­ness­es. The re­cent pub­li­ca­tion of the Ex­im­Bank’s for­eign ex­change al­lo­ca­tions was eye open­ing for some, but ul­ti­mate­ly not sur­pris­ing for own­ers of re­tail cloth­ing stores who spoke with the Busi­ness Guardian over the past week.

“The US dol­lar is not even a dis­cus­sion,” said one Ch­agua­nas busi­ness­man, who said he had ap­plied for an al­lo­ca­tion from sev­er­al banks al­most a decade ago with no suc­cess.

“The banks are more favour­ing the big­ger com­pa­nies, be­cause when the big­ger com­pa­nies get the forex now, and they are leav­ing the small­er com­pa­nies, like my­self and oth­ers (with noth­ing to get). We don’t get any,” he said, “In oth­er words, the rich get­ting rich­er, and then we, who are the mid­dle class. It’s kind of prac­ti­cal­ly im­pos­si­ble to grow.”