Most of the stalls in Bangladesh's Global Village pavilion remain empty, more than two weeks after the opening of the Dubai Shopping Festival.

Pavilion organisers have failed to do justice to the country's image by bringing in quality exporters, eyewitnesses said.

While community members accused the organisers of negligence, failing to live up to expectations and of "seriously damaging" the country's image in this international fair, the organising officials blamed a lack of government support and interest.

Without government support, it is very difficult to make the pavilion a success, Mirza Shamsuzzaman, Bangladesh's Ambassador to the UAE, told Gulf News.

"Initially, the Ministry of Commerce and officials representing the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry [FBCCI] showed interest and made a commitment for more than 20 stalls. They later failed to fulfil their commitment, however. As a result, the organisers could not fill up the pavilion."

Abdul Awal Mintoo, president of FBCCI, told Gulf News from Dhaka the organisers did not communicate with his team.

"We had a meeting in Dhaka about six months ago with the pavilion's organisers. We committed to [filling a] certain number of stalls at the pavilion.

"The organisers did not come back to us after this, however. Had they done so, we would have filled the entire pavilion. For us, it is not a difficult task. Unfortunately, we never received any communication from the organisers after that meeting."

Bangladesh first participated in Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF) in 2001 and had 32 stalls that year.

The pavilion is currently being organised by Inscope M.E., a Dubai-based private company.

Last year, the company rented out most of the stalls to non-Bangladeshi traders to fill up the spaces, community members said. "This year, they are not even successful in doing that," said a community member, requesting anonymity. "This is unfortunate and needs to be investigated by the embassy or consulate."

"Our pavilion is not representing our country, our products and heritage," said Arif Ahmad, a non-resident Bangladeshi banker.

Syyed Fayyaz Husyn, of Inscope M.E., said: "We're optimistic the stalls will be filled in the next few days. If that fails, then we have to consider our commercial interests, by giving the remaining stalls to traders from other countries."