The New Nation - Internet Edition

BSS, Dhaka

The World Bank (WB) will continue its support to Bangladesh to accelerate economic growth and poverty reduction.

Managing director of the World Bank Graeme Paul Wheeler stated this during his meeting with the Finance Adviser Dr AB Mirza Azizul Islam on Saturday in Washington, a message received here Sunday said. The WB appreciated the policy and institutional reforms being pursued by the present caretaker government and hoped that these reforms will contribute significantly to establishing a framework for good governance in Bangladesh.

Wheeler encouraged the government to pursue government-owned ongoing reforms robustly so that assistance from the Bank can be scaled up and effectively used for the benefit of the poor.

The Adviser thanked Mr. Wheeler for World Bank's continued support and expressed the commitment of the Bangladesh government to pursue institutional and policy reforms.

The adviser also highlighted the reforms already implemented in combating corruption and separation of judiciary from the executive. He also mentioned developments in tax reforms and creation of Better Business Forum as a mark of advancing investment climate in Bangladesh.

He indicated that there has been an improvement in the aid resources in Bangladesh following various actions taken by the present government under the leadership of the Chief Adviser, which justifies more support from the Bank, the message added.

The finance adviser also reiterated the need for continued assistance from the World Bank on those sectors, which have direct bearing on poverty reduction efforts along with focus on addressing the challenges emanating from climate change.

On the sidelines of the Bank Fund meeting, the Adviser had a detailed meeting with the Bangladesh Country Team in the World Bank. The Finance Adviser appreciated Bank's commitment to provide sealed up budget support following the recent floods. He reiterated the sincere intention of the interim government to transfer power to the elected government by the end of 2008 and highlighted the major policy and institutional reforms such as the reconstitution of Anti-Corruption Commission, Election Commission and the Public Service Commission.

During these meetings, Alternative Executive Director Zakir Ahmed Khan, ERD Secretary Md. Aminul Islam Bhuiyan, Finance Secretary Dr. Mohammad Tareque and Bangladesh Ambassador to the US M Humayun Kabir and Economic Minister and Mr. Mahfuzul Haque were present.

It may be mentioned that the three-day 2007 Bank-Fund Annual Meetings began on Saturday in Washington DC. The Finance and Planning Adviser Dr. A.B. Mirza Azizul Islam, who is also the Governor of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund for Bangladesh, arrived here Friday to attend the meetings, the message said.

A.T.M.Nurun Nabi

The price index of the total export increased by 0.01 percent in July but the index by volume declined by 21.09 percent, according to the report released by Export Promotion Bureau. The price index of the primary products rose by 14.45 percent but the index by volume fell by 5.98 percent while the price index of the manufactured products declined by 1.30 and the index by volume by 21.84 percent.

During the said month, the country exported products of 902.33 million dollar, short of the strategic target of 1341.25 million dollar by 32.72 percent and of the last fiscal year's performance of 1143.36 million dollar by 21.08 percent.

Only five products exceeded both the last fiscal year's corresponding month's performance and the strategic target (figures in million dollars and July 2006-07 performance within bracket):

These are vegetables 10.49 (4.17), cut flower 4.94 (2.44), pharmaceuticals 3.21 (3.01), leather bags & purses 1.29 (1.00) and agricultural process food 5.17 (2.38).

Raw jute 6.49 (5.34), foot wear 10.58 (8.42) and tea 0.73 (0.52) are the three products that exceeded last fiscal year's performance but fell short of strategic target.

Conversely, as many as 19 products fell short of both the strategic target and the previous fiscal year's corresponding month's performance.

Some of them are woven garments 345.20 (451.91), frozen food 45.93 (51.93), home textile 18.68 (19.91), handicrafts 0.35 (0.74), knitwear 346.74 (452.94), leather 20.54 (25.96), jute goods 22.66 (26.96) terry towel 8.40 (8.90) and ceramic products 2.24 (2.68). The strategic target of the fiscal 2007-08 has been set at 14500 million dollar, which is hard to achieve if the political stability is not established in the country, unrest in the RMG arena ends and the Bangladesh Missions abroad become not active.

A year ago it was 12500 million dollar, not achieved for a little.

It gathers from another report that 23 out of 44 Bangladesh Missions failed to achieve export target for the fiscal 2006-07. The missions are Washington, Ottawa, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thimpu, New Delhi, Islamabad, Doha, Abu Dhabi, Manama, Mascot, Canberra, Cairo, Bangkok, Riad, Kuwait, Manila, Amman, Tashkent, Brunei, Berlin, Tokyo and Katmandu. One of the causes of failures is that the appointment in the Bangladeshi Missions is done on political consideration and personal relationship than on quality. Another reason is the lack of monitoring of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Commerce.

AFP, Washington

World Bank policymakers meet here today ( Sunday) to anchor agriculture at the center of their agenda in a major shift aimed at lifting billions of people out of poverty. The new Bank president, Robert Zoellick, has pledged to boost the institution's lending to the farm sector after allowing it to decline in 1980s and 1990s.

Zoellick vows the Bank will use an inclusive approach to fight poverty, hunger and disease, and this week unveiled a controversial proposal to allow private-sector business to help finance aid to poor countries.

"There is much more we can do to connect the 'bottom billion' to the rest of the world," Zoellick said Saturday, after attending a meeting of the International Monetary Fund steering committee. The twin institutions are holding their annual meetings in Washington through Monday.

"Inclusive development means greater voice for those most affected by our decisions," said the former US trade chief and Goldman Sachs executive, who took office in July after his predecessor was forced to resign in a favoritism scandal.

Globalization has created opportunities but "has not embraced all," he said. "Too many countries, especially in Africa, are expected to fall short of meeting many of the Millennium Development Goals" of halving the percentage of people living on less than a dollar a day by 2015.

The institution's annual World Development Report, released this week, acknowledged that Bank lending to agriculture had declined from 1980 to 2000 but said its support for rural development had begun to pick up four years ago and would increase further.

Commitments this year are expected to come to 3.1 billion dollars. Nevertheless, while 75 percent of the world's poor live in rural areas "a mere 4.0 percent of official development assistance goes to agriculture in developing countries," the report found.

In sub-Saharan Africa furthermore, public spending on farming amounts to only 4.0 percent of total government expenditure.

An improvement in a country's gross domestic product that is agriculture-driven is four times more effective in reducing poverty than is GDP growth originating in other sectors, the report said. "We need to give agriculture more prominence across the board," Zoellick said in presenting the report Thursday. "At the global level, countries must deliver on vital reforms such as cutting distorting subsidies and opening markets, while civil society groups, especially farmer organizations, need more say in setting the agricultural agenda."

ActionAid, which is spearheading a campaign to stamp out hunger, denounced the Bank report for perpetuating the "same market-led approach, which for the last 25 years has been a massive failure even by its (the Bank's) own standards."

The ambitious agenda under Zoellick comes as the 185-nation Bank campaigns for contributions among members to rebuild the coffers of the International Development Association (IDA), the Bank's main lender to countries whose populations live on less that two dollars per day, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Bank itself recently pledged to more than double its contribution to the 15th IDA campaign, to 3.5 billion dollars.

Zoellick noted Saturday that about 70 percent of the poor live in India, China and the middle-income countries (MICs) served by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Bank's public financing arm.

"In order to meet the great needs of emerging-market countries, I have asked our board to simplify and cut our prices so we can expand our lending to support development and growth," he said. Bank policymakers are also expected to discuss an innovative strategy to involve private-sector business in Bank financing.

Zoellick said he did not see any "particular problem" with getting board approval for the project, but for some the plan raises conflict of interest concerns.

"The private sector getting involved in the replenishment of IDA raises serious questions," said Sebastien Fourmy, a spokesman of Oxfam International, a nongovernmental organization.

The World Bank is "a public institution accountable to citizens," not to shareholders, said Fourmy.

The Eastern University (EU)aims at standard education and to provide scholarships to the meritorious students, said Mesbahuddin Ahmed, Member, Eastern University Foundation at the 'Orientation Ceremony for Fall Semester 2007’ held at Eastern University Auditorium (H#8/A, R#4 Dhanmondi R/A, Dhaka) on Saturday afternoon. Engr. Kh. Mesbahuddin Ahmed, Member, Eastern University Foundatio, who was the chief guest. added that the main objective of this university is to provide standard education for all the students and to allow scholarship and tuition fee waivers to poor and meritorious students. He requested all students to make the university campus free from politics. Registrar, Deans and faculty members of all departments were present in the program. At the end, Prof. Dr. Rahim B. Talukdar, Vice-Chancellor of the University offered vote of thanks.

AFP, Tehran

Iran, OPEC's number-two exporter, hit out on Friday at the recent hike in oil prices, saying real prices were far lower than the 90-dollar-a-barrel level of last week.

"Oil is still cheap," acting Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari said in an interview with the Iran newspaper.

"The sweet taste of oil is not tangible because it is very far from the range that is expected by us (Iran and OPEC)," Nozari said.

Nozari argued that calculations based on current inflation rates and depreciation of the dollar's value as well as high costs of oil and gas projects puts oil's true price at less than 50 dollars a barrel.

"Today's prices even at the level of 90 dollars a barrel (in the market) are not effective because the real price of oil is currently about 47 dollars per barrel (as profit)," he said.

Nozari also said political issues were casting a "shadow of threat" on the flow of investment into the oil-producing countries, especially Iraq, Nigeria and Venezuela.

"If the owners of financial sources do not make a meaningful investment in the oil-rich countries, oil prices will be uncontrollable in the near future," he warned.

Oil prices ended lower Friday after striking a record high above 90 dollars in New York amid global supply jitters and lingering tensions between Turkey and crude producer Iraq.

New York's key oil futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in November, closed down 87 cents at 88.60 dollars a barrel. But the contract had earlier surged to a record 90.07 dollars. That beat the previous high of 90.02 dollars set late Thursday.

In London, Brent North Sea crude for December delivery settled 81 cents lower at 83.79 dollars after hitting a record 84.88 dollars on Thursday.

Xinhua, Nanning

China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have seen fast growth in bilateral trade with the volume being expected to reach 190 billion U.S. dollars this year.

"The figure is expected to top 200 billion U.S. dollars in 2008, two years earlier than our expectation," said Zhang Xiaoqin, secretary general of China-ASEAN Expo Secretariat.

China and ASEAN are now each other's fourth largest trading partners. Zhang said, the China-ASEAN trade volume was 160.8 billion U. S. dollars last year, while in the first eight months this year, the bilateral trade hit 127.95 billion U.S. dollars.

Meanwhile, China and the 10 ASEAN members are speeding up the tariff reduction to facilitate the establishment of China- ASEAN free trade zone. China's average tariff on ASEAN countries' goods was slashed from 9.9 percent to 5.8 percent now and will continue to drop to 2.4 percent in 2009, and finally in 2010, which is the scheduled time for the establishment of the free trade zone, 93 percent of products from ASEAN countries will be tariff-free.

PTI, Kathmandu

The authorities in Nepal have stopped the distribution of petroleum products so as to save on the precious commodity during the Dashain festival after India's oil major IOC sharply cut supply because of outstanding dues in the last few months.

Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) officials said it has stopped the supply of petroleum products for four days beginning from October 19.

The decision to stop distribution comes at a time when most of the gas stations in Kathmandu are running dry. On Thursday, serpentine queues of vehicles could be seen at the gas stations of Nepal Police and the army. Supply of petroleum in the country has been erratic since last few months after the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) reduced supply citing the NOC's failure to clear the dues.

The officials said the supply would be resumed from October 23 as the NOC has imported sufficient quantity from India for normal distribution after the Dashain festival. The monthly loss of NOC, which is the sole supplier of petroleum in Nepal, has reached Rs 38 crore.