The New Nation - Internet Edition

Banglalink Roundtable Conference on Tourism on June 14

Banglalink Roundtable Conference on "Immediate Need for the Development of Bangladesh Tourism" will be held in the city on June 14. Organised jointly by the premier travel publication The Bangladesh Monitor and national Bangla Daily Samakal and sponsored by mobile giant Banglalink, the roundtable will be held at the Ball Room of Dhaka Sheraton Hotel at 3:30 pm. The keynote paper on the topic will be presented by Raquib Siddiqi, Chief Editor, The Bangladesh Monitor. Abed Khan, Editor, the daily Samakal will be the Moderator. Among those who will be present in the Elite Panel of Discussants are: Mahbub Jamil, Special Assistant to the Chief Adviser, Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism, Syed Mohammad Zobaer, Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism, Abdul Karim, Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, Touhid Hossain, Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Shafique Alam Mehdi, Chairman, Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation, Dr. M. A. Momen, Managing Director, Biman Bangladesh Airlines, Rashid Khan, Managing Director and CEO, Banglalink, Shahab Sattar, Managing Director, GMG Airlines, M. Haider Uzzaman, Chairman, Best Air Ltd, Hasan Mansur, President, Tour Operators Association of Bangladesh (TOAB), M. A. Muhaimin Saleh, President, Association of Travel Agents of Bangladesh (ATAB), Mohammad Jahangir, Executive Director, Centre for Development Communication and Hanif Zakaria, Area Manager, Emirates Bangladesh.The deliberations by the Elite Panel of Discussants will be followed by an Open Forum.

20 Bangladeshi govt officials to leave for Japan under JDS

STAFF REPORTER

The send-off ceremony for the fellows of Japan Development Scholarship (JDS) was held by inviting JDS returned fellows at the Japanese Ambassador's residence on June 11 last.

Out of 302 candidates, 20 Bangladeshi young government officials have been selected for JDS. The fellows have completed two-month Japanese language training programme. They will leave for Japan at the end of June for studying for two years to get Master's degrees in four fields: Public Administration, Economics, International Relations and Environmental Policy.

During the ceremony, Ambassador of Japan in Bangladesh Masayuki Inoue called JDS fellows to keep in mind that both Bangladeshi and Japanese people expected a great deal from them for the development of their own country through making the best use of knowledge and experience acquired in Japan.

The formal title of Japan Development Scholarship is "The Japanese Grant Aid for Human Resource Development Scholarship (JDS)." This was established by the Bangladesh government with the assistance of the Japan government since 2001. JDS contributes to enhance the knowledge and skills of young Bangladeshi people so that they can play leading roles in the development of Bangladesh after completion of their studies. In the last six years, a total of 127 JDS fellows were sent to Japan, and 91 fellows have already come back to Bangladesh with their accomplishments and ambitions to contribution to the country. These new 20 fellows are also expected to contribute to the development of this county in their respective fields after their return.

Pubali Bank officials urged to follow BB rules strictly

ECONOMIC REPORTER

A workshop titled 'Asset Liability Management' for officers of Pubali Bank Limited was held at the Head Office of the bank recently.

It was organised by Pubali Bank Training Institute. Managing Director of Pubali Bank Ltd Helal Ahmed Chowdhury was present as the chief guest at the workshop.

In his speech, Helal Ahmed Chowdhury said asset liability management is nothing new in banking sector but one should have in detail knowledge for proper asset liability management.

He urged the Pubali Bank officials to be more vigilant in grading asset liability and documentation relating to credit sanction and disbursement.

The Managing Director also advised all trainee officers to make sincere efforts to follow the asset liability guidelines of Bangladesh Bank strictly and analyse the loan portfolio properly for sanctioning advances.

Principal of the Training Institute Badruddin Ahmed and faculty member DGM Sushil Kumar Paul were present at the workshop.

National Budget 2008-09: BJMA demands to raise subsidy up to 15pc on jute goods export

ECONOMIC REPORTER

Bangladesh Jute Mills Association (BJMA) yesterday demanded enhancement of subsidy up to 15 per cent from the existing 7.50 per cent for export of jute and jute goods as some 3.50 crore people are directly involved in this labour intensive sector.

The BJMA leaders also urged the government to reopen all the closed jute mills and reduce rate of interest, waive the outstanding cumulative interest and ensure uninterrupted supply of electricity.

The leaders demanded of the government to take initiative to offload the maximum shares of jute mills to the capital market.

They also demanded to withdraw the existing 5 per cent source tax on export subsidy.

Though in the proposed budget there was no mention of about the subsidy against the export of the jute-manufactured goods, the BJMA thanked the government for proposing the continuation of subsidy in export in the budget and hope they would fulfil their demands.

Referring to the proposed national budget of 2008-09, the BJMA hailed the proposals of withdrawing the existing turnover tax, reducing duty to 3 per cent from the existing 5 per cent on import of capital machinery and spare parts, forming the Better Business Forum, suspension of submitting indemnity bond, maintain tax holiday etc in the budget.

Al-Arafah Islami Bank holds EC meeting

The 216th meeting of the Executive Committee of Al-Arafah Islami Bank Ltd was held at its head office on June 7.

Alhaj Abdus Samad, Chairman of the Committee presided over the meeting. The meeting reviewed the overall business and investment position of the bank. CoChairman of the Executive Committee Alhaj Abdul Malek Mollah, Directors Alhaj Najmul Ahsan Khaled, Alhaj Hafej Md Enayetullah, Kazi Md Mofizur Rahman, General Manager of Bangladesh Bank Md Amzad Hossain, Managing Director of the bank MA Samad Sheikh, Additional Managing Director ATM Haurn, Dr Rashid Chowdhury, Executive Vice Presidents Syed Emdadul Hoque, Sr Vice President ANM Abdus Shahid and Company Secretary and Sr Vice President Md Mofazzal Hossain were present in the meeting.

Czech Republic to invest over $3b in Bangladesh

ECONOMIC REPORTER

Prime Minister of the Czech Republic Mireck Topolank has said Bangladesh is an emerging economy and his country considered it as a best destination for investment.

He said his government is considering to invest more than 3 billion dollars in oil refinery, fertiliser, IT, energy and defense sectors of Bangladesh.

He disclosed this during a meeting with Mahabubur Rahman, Honorary Consul of the Czech Republic in Bangladesh last week.

During a week-long visit, Mahabubur Rahman also called on Minister of Foreign Affairs Karel Schwarzenberg and President of the Senate and Parliament of the Czech Republic, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs (Economy and Trade), Director General of Czech Export Bank and high officials of the Ministry of Trade and Industry.

During the meetings, Czech authorities expressed their sincere desire to help Bangladesh in its development efforts.

IFC to assist trade finance operations of banks in SA

ECONOMIC REPORTER

International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of World Bank Group, launched Global Trade Finance Programme to help improve the trade finance operations of banks in South Asia and enable them to better support local entrepreneurs and small business.

The IFC familiarised it purposes yesterday at a press conference at Lakeshore Hotel in the city.

In the four daylong seminar, which included sessions on documentary credit, trade finance rules, guarantee instruments, asset liability management, treasury and the process of applying IFC guarantees to various financing structures, the representatives of the 16 banks of South Asia region including Bangladesh Bank, Prime Bank, Southeast Bank, Brac Bank, Exim Bank and Commercial Bank of Ceylon of Bangladesh participated in it.

Scott Stevenson, IFC Manager for Global Trade Finance Programme, said, "Our mandate as part of IFC's Global Trade Finance Programme, includes assisting banks to develop and upscale their trade finance operations; I hope the participating banks would benefit from the course." In response to a question he said the charge of the banks would vary with the political and economical conditions of a country.

Senior Financial Markets Specialist of the IFC Rehan Rashid clarified the activities of the Corporation. He said in case of opening Letter of Credit (LC) foreign banks often did not cooperate the native banks for the fear of bankrupting.

IFC played role of liaison and bridge foreign and local banks through giving guarantee of the probable risks Rehan Rashid said and added the banks, which had good reputation in banking, would be able to become a part of the programme.

The programme has provided more than $2.3 billion worth of guarantees to 97 issuing banks in 50 countries, where more than 70 per cent are issued for small and medium enterprises.

Square Hospital signs deal with ADB

ECONOMIC REPORTER

Square Hospitals Ltd and Asian Development Bank have signed a corporate healthcare agreement recently. Under this agreement, every employee of Asian Development Bank and their dependants will get privileged coverage of health check-ups, medical consultations, diagnostic services, and outdoor and in-patient services.

KM Saiful Islam, Director, Square and Ms Hua Du, Country Director, Asian Development Bank signed the agreement on behalf of their respective organizations.

Square Hospitals Ltd, a concern of Square Group is located in the heart of Dhaka and aims to serve greater portion of the capital city. Square Hospital is a 300-bed tertiary-care hospital. The hospital is an affiliate partner of The Methodist Healthcare, Memphis, Tennessee, USA; Christian Medical College, Vellore, India; Care IVF (In-vitro fertility) Centre, Singapore, Sing Health Group, Singapore and Bangkok Hospital Medical Centre, Thailand. Square Hospital aims at providing unparallel service to the people of Bangladesh by delivering the highest possible level of care. For this, huge investment has been made in providing state-of-the-art equipment and technology. Square Hospital has a number of medical consultants (non-resident Bangladeshis) of different disciplines from USA, UK and from quality hospitals in the Middle East.

M. Enamul Aziz, Head of Administration, Maruf Hossain, Administrative Coordinator from Asian Development Bank, Bangladesh Resident Mission, Md EE Yousuf Siddique, Manager, Accounts and Finance, Dr Md Faisal Zaman, Manager-Marketing and Business Development, Ms. Ann Mitchell-Nursing Consultant, M. A. Jalil Khan, Coordinator-Patient care & Business Development and Maruf Ahmed, Executive-Marketing & Business Development from Square Hospitals Ltd were present at the signing ceremony.

Bangladesh Society of NY president honoured

STAFF REPORTER

Ms Nargis Ahmed, president of Bangladesh Society New York, was honored with an award from District Council 37, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) in recognition of her contribution and leadership to the Asian-American community on June 6 last. Nargis Ahmed is the first female president of Bangladesh Society New York, which was established in 1975 and has since become the largest Bangladeshi organization abroad. This is the most recent of many awards that have been granted to her over the years for her tireless dedication to her community, some of which include a commendation plaque from the New York City Comptroller and also a Proclamation from the New York City Council.

BSRS donates Tk 5 lakh to AMCH

Bangladesh Silpa Rin Sangstha (BSRS) has donated Tk 5 lakh for the ongoing construction project of Ahsania Mission Cancer Hospital at Uttara in the city.

BSRS Managing Director (In-Charge) Md Amirul Islam handed over a cheque for Tk 5 lakh to Dhaka Ahsania Mission (DAM) Presidcnt Kazi Rafiqul Alam in a simple ceremony on Tuesday at the Mission Bhaban at Dhanmondi.

It may be mentioned that on March 21 last year BSRS donated another similar amount of Tk 5 lakh. For this donation a two bed cabin will be dedicated in the name of 'Bangladesh Silpa Rin Sangstha.'

BSRS (DMD) Md. Khalilur Rahman. Asstt MD Shahinul Hari Choudhury CPO Ataur Rahman. PO Engr Asaduzzaman and DAM officials were present on the occasion.

While handing over the cheque, BSRS MD (In-charge) Md. Aminul Islam expressed his happiness for this donation to such a humanitarian project.

DAM President Kazi Rafiqul Alam thanked BSRS for this donation and urged all to cooperate in completing the remaining work or this health care project.

IIBL arranges get-together of bankers, businessmen in Ctg

A get-together and business review meeting of Islami Insurance Bangladesh Limited has recently been held with prominent bankers and business magnates in Chittagong Club Conference Room, Chittagong.

A good number of members of the business community and bankers of Chittagong and the members of the board of directors as well as managing director of the company and local branch managers attended the function.

Tofazzal Hossain, chairman of the executive committee of IIBL, who is also the chairman of NCC Bank Ltd, delivered speech in the meeting on different issues of insurance business of the company.