The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

According to a recent World Bank report, the rate of poverty in the country dropped to 48.9 percent in 2005 from 40 pc in 2000 while the extreme poverty rate to 34.3 percent from 25.1 percent According to one statistics, people's per capita income is at present 485 dollar, marking a significant progress over the years.

As regard the definition of poverty, there are several opinions. One opinion suggests that a man is poor if he earns one dollar or less than that per day. The Islamic point of view is that a man could be called poor if his monthly income is less than expenditure of the month to which it relates.

The WB defines poverty on the basis of how much calorie of food does a man take per day. If a man takes 2122 calories of food or less than that per day, it will be taken that he lives under poverty line. And if a man takes 1805 calories of food or less than that per day, it will be taken that he lives under extreme poverty line.

But the costs of living have increased over the years. It is because prices of essentials have increased in last one year. T

The price of the coarse rice increased by minimum taka six in last one year; fine rice by taka 10 to 14; edible oil by taka 32 per liter; mustard oil by taka 65, coarse flour by taka 13, lentil by taka 32, mash by taka 40, onion by taka 14, beef by taka 40, muton by taka 60, potato by taka eight and green pepper by taka minimum 60. Not only prices of the essential commodities so mentioned increased, prices of other essentials too except papaw increased at an alarming rate.

It means that the success of the past government in reducing the poverty in the country has failed to bring comfort because of high prices of foodstuffs.

Surely the monthly income of a fourth class government employee or a agriculture day labor is under no way sufficient to meet the increased prices. The WB has reported that the number of the agriculture day labor has fallen from 43.6 pc to 36.3 pc. The reason thereof is obvious.

When a man becomes unable to maintain family with his income, he will be constrained to change his profession. The decrease of the agriculture day labor might leave an adverse impact on the agri-production in future, if not present, if the trend continues.

However, the rein of price-hike could be checked by building a counter market force as early as possible.

Pakistani company in the name & style M/s. Nokon Limited is going to set up an Agro Handicrafts & Engineering Product Manufacturing Industry at the Adamjee Export Processing Zone.

This 100 pc foreign owned company will invest US$ 5.592 million and will manufacture annually 10,980 metric tons of agro products, 9,150 metric tons of agro food products, 1,171 metric tons of handicrafts and 325 metric tons of engineering goods. The company will create employment opportunity for 402 Bangladeshi and 20 foreign nationals.

An agreement to this effect was signed between the Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority and M/s. Nokon Limited in Dhaka on Thursday. Prasanta Bhushan Barua, Member (Investment Promotion) of BEPZA and Mohammad Shakir, Managing Director of Nokon Limited, executed the agreement in this regard on behalf of their respective organisations.

Among others, Brig. General Ashraf Abdullah Yussuf, Executive Chairman, General Manager (Investment Promotion), AZM Azizur Rahim and Manager (Industrial Relations) Md. Abdus .Sobhan of BEPZA were present at the signing ceremony.

Oracle on Thursday announced that Oracle's Hyperion has been named the leading Corporate Performance Management (CPM) suites vendor worldwide and in Asia Pacific based on 200n worldwide software revenues by Gartner.

In its report, Gartner defines CPM as encompassing the processes used to manage corporate performance (such as strategy formulation, budgeting, revenue planning and financial forecasting), the methodologies that drive facets of these processes (such as the balanced scorecard or value-based management), and the metrics used to measure performance against strategic and operational performance goals. The primary functional areas of CPM are budgeting, planning and forecasting, score carding, profitability modeling, financial consolidation, financial/statutory reporting, and analytic applications that are part of a BI and performance management framework. Gartner noted that the total software revenue in the CPM suites market grew 20.2 percent to $1.5 billion in 2006, led by the need for organisations to adhere to compliance issues and implement strategic change.

'CPM and business intelligence markets and technologies are converging rapidly,' said Rich Clayton, Vice President, Business Intelligence and Performance Management Marketing, Oracle. "As a leader in these markets, Oracle is providing organisations increased value by delivering the industry's only hot-pluggable, integrated enterprise performance management system that unifies corporate and financial performance management, operational analytic applications, BI tools, reporting and data integration, all on a common business intelligence platform. "

Southeast Bank accorded a rousing reception to their newly recruited Probationary Officers and Trainee Cash Officers on August 28, 2007 at Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Center, Dhaka. Alamgir Kabir, FCA, Chairman of the bank was the chief guest at the function. Former Chairman Azim Uddin Ahmed, Director Rehana Rahman, Sirat Monira, former Directors, namely, Duluma Ahmed, Syed Shahid Ali and Dr. Humayun Kabir also atended the function.

In his valuable speech, Chairman Alamgir Kabir focused clearly on bank's corporate culture, governance standard, its distinctive identify as a banking institution, compensation package, programmes for human resource development, code of conduct and portrayed the expectations of the bank from the new recruits. Azim Uddin Ahmed, Former Chairman, and Rehana Rahman, Director, also delivered inspiring speeches at the function.

In his address, Managing Director Neaz Ahmed welcomed the new recruits and their parents (and guardians) and outlined bank's operational scenario, career path of the employees of the bank and the performance desired of them.

PTI, New Delhi

Cheaper food products and some manufactured items dragged inflation to a 16-month low at 3.79 percent for the week ended August 25, raising expectations of a softening monetary policy stance by the central bank.

The wholesale price index, which stood at 3.94 percent for the week ended August 18, has remained below the four per cent mark for the second week in a row and is much lower than 5.27 percent in the corresponding week of last year.

Inflation was lower than the latest figure during the week ended April 29, 2006 at 3.59 percent

This has fueled expectations of a softening monetary stance by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) as wholesale prices-based inflation has remained below its estimates for quite some time now.

RBI has projected inflation close to 5 percent for the current fiscal and 4-4.5 percent for the medium term.

Finance Minister P. Chidambaram had earlier said the government aims to keep inflation rate close to four per cent He had also said there would be pressure on food prices until production of wheat, rice and pulses was stepped up.

According to analysts, prediction of normal monsoon has given rise to expectations of a fall in food prices in the coming months. During the first quarter of this fiscal, farm sector witnessed a growth of 3.8 percent This indicated increase in supply of food items, which had been primarily responsible for the rise in inflation.

Among essential items, prices of wheat, which is being imported by the government due to fall in the stock of public distribution system, fell by one percent Besides, prices of fruits, vegetables, maize and fish declined by one percent

However, prices of food products in manufactured items like gur rose by 3 percent, while rice bran oil, gingelly oil and soyabean oil prices were up one percent Other commodities like sunflower were expensive by five per cent, while raw coton rates shot up by three per cent

Among manufactured items, prices of zinc declined by one percent, while zinc ingot moved down by two per cent Acids of all kind were cheaper by two per cent and carbon black by one percent However, cement prices firmed up by 0.2 percent, pipes and tubes were up by one percent, and ayurvedic medicine liquids by four percent

Inflation for the week ended June 30 figure was revised to 4.42 percent against the provisional figure of 4.27 percent as the wholesale price index finally stood at 212.8 points compared to provisional estimate of 212.5 points.

UNB, Dhaka

Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) has demanded soft-loan for six months to pay salary and Eid bonus to workers as many of the factory owners turned insolvent

"We received 35 less export orders this year and hence it will be difficult for many of the factory owners to pay salary and Eid bonus to workers," BGMEA president Anwarul-Ul Alam Chowdhury (Parvez) told at a press conference in his office today.

He urged the government to declare the garment industry as 'Thrust Sector' and sought a separate ministry to deal with this sector.

"The garment industry has to coordinate with many departments of the government and sometimes it created difficulties," said Anwar justifying his demand for separate Apparel Ministry to look after the problems of the sector.

He said the garment industry has potentials of export earning of US$ 15 to 18 billions annually within next three years by raising the capacity.

"If we are able to occupy only 4 percent of the world market, our export-earning will go up to 25 billion US dollars. It is even possible to earn 50 billion US dollars annually by next 10 years," he said.

The BGMEA president observed that many graduates, post-graduates and skilled personnel turned out by vocational institutes remained unemployed. But the garment sector has provided 25-30 percent of unskilled workers.

BGMEA vice presidents Faisal Samad, Ferdous Parvez Bivon, ABM Shamduddin and directors were present at the press conference.

AFP, Washington

The world's largest economy was hit with surprise job losses in August as a housing slump and a pullback in home construction triggered increased layoffs, a government report revealed on Friday. The Labor Department said US employers unexpectedly shed 4,000 jobs in August, marking the first drop in payrolls since August of 2003.

Economists warned the job losses could worsen as banks and mortgage companies slash positions to fend off a broad credit crunch. The unexpected decline in nonfarm payrolls caught Wall Street off guard, triggering sharp falls on major stock markets. Most economists had expected around 110,000 new jobs to be created in August The leading Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down a heavy 1.87 percent at 13,113.38 points as the job survey dented investor optimism.

"The jobs numbers were about as disappointing as they could be," said Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors. The employment snapshot raises the odds that the Federal Reserve will slash borrowing costs at a policy meeting scheduled for September 18, partly as it suggests economic growth is slowing. The brunt of the job losses tracked by the report, viewed as one of the best indicators of economic momentum, occurred in the manufacturing and construction industries.

The national unemployment rate held steady at 4.6 percent despite the month's job losses.

The Fed is coming under increasing pressure to slash its key short term federal funds interest rate, which has been anchored at 5.25 percent since June 2006, to bolster growth. "The numbers were obviously prety weak. So I think in the context of what is going on in money markets, it solidifies our expectation of a 50 basis point cut by the Fed on September 18," said Ian Morris, chief US economist at HSBC North America in New.

David Kotok, the chairman and chief executive officer of Cumberland Advisors, agreed that the Fed would likely move to cut rates at its upcoming rate meeting.

"It is clear from this report and from the other reports on the labor markets that the employment situation in the United States is worsening and the pace is accelerating," Kotok said.

bdnews24.com, Dhaka

The Securities and Exchange Commission has asked Warid Telecom to issue shares to the public within three years of starting its commercial operation, an official said.

The regulator slapped the condition after the subsidiary of the UAE-based Abu Dhabi Group sought more time to convert itself into a public limited company (PLC).

The SEC gave Warid two years to become a PLC.

Under SEC rule, a company needs to convert itself to a public limited company if its paid-up capital exceeds Tk 400 million.

The rule also allows the stock market regulator to ask companies to go public if their paid-up capital tops Tk 500 million.

Warid has, according to SEC, a paid-up capital of Tk 11.20 billion with a face value of Tk 100 each share.

"We have imposed the condition on Warid under a section of SEC ordinance 1969," an SEC official, who preferred not to be named, last week told bdnews24.com.

The SEC in a leter to Warid said: "Warid Telecom International Ltd shall issue its shares to the public within three years of commencement of its commercial operation."

Zeeshan Kingshuk Huq, Warid's senior manager, marketing, said they made foray into Bangladesh market less than four months ago and would ensure "sustainable benefits to potential investors" before going public.

"It is, therefore, too early to make a comment on our public offering plans," he said. Warid, the sixth cellphone operator in Bangladesh, started commercial operation on May 10.

It obtained a 15-year GSM license from Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission in December 2005 paying $50 million as fee.

Eastern Bank Limited (EBL) appointed Mamoon Mahmood Shah Senior Executive Vice President (SEVP) effective from 1 September 2007. He will be heading the Consumer Banking Division. Mamoon brings with him years of experience from both local and multinational banks. Prior to this appointment, he held the position of Head of Personal Financial Services (PFS) in HSBC Bangladesh. In the last nineteen years of his banking career, he served in different important positions in IFIC, ANZ Grindlays, Standard Chartered and lately in HSBC Bangladesh.

Reuters, Beijing

China will provide about 4 billion yuan ($530 million) in favourable loans over three years to Chinese companies investing in the Caribbean, the China Daily said on Saturday, citing vice premier Wu Yi.

The Caribbean is a growing source for China's imports of resources, including alumina, nickel and sugar, helping lift trade with the region by 64 percent last year to $4.4 billion.

In return, China is an important source of textiles and manufactured goods for the island nations.

China agreed to promote tourism and provide training and technology exchange to help balance trade with the region, the China Daily said.

"China will provide assistance without ataching any political strings, including providing 4 billion yuan in low-interest loans and training for 2,000 technical personnel," Wu told the China-Caribbean Economic and Trade Cooperation Forum in Xiamen, atended by delegates from 13 Caribbean countries.

The forum included the Dominican Republic, Haiti and St Lucia, three of the 24 remaining nations that formally recognise Taiwan. St Lucia in April reopened diplomatic ties with Taipei, prompting anger in Beijing.

Beijing and Taipei, fierce diplomatic rivals since the end of China's civil war in 1949, compete with aid and cheap loans to curry influence around the world.