The New Nation - Internet Edition

Various problems of CEPZ discussed

UNB, Comilla

An opinion exchange meeting here Friday discussed various problems of Comilla Export Processing Zone (CEPZ), including the recent workers unrest. The meeting, held at Police Super's conference room, also emphasized the need to continue normal production at the EPZ by resolving workers unrest. A coordination committee has also been formed to look into the interest of the workers and entrepreneurs to avert any untoward situation in the EPZ. Presided over Police Super Imtiaz Ahmed, the meeting was addressed, among others, by CEPZ general manager M Abdur Rashid and Lt Col (retd) Joynul Abedin of Nasa Spinning Mills Ltd.

Regulatory reforms hit record levels, says WB

Xinhua, Washington

Regulatory reforms are gaining momentum worldwide, reaching record numbers this year, according to a report released by the World Bank on Thursday. Doing Business 2009, the sixth in a series of annual reports published by IFC and the World Bank, identifies 239 reforms between June 2007 and June 2008 that make it easier to do business in 113 economies.

For the fifth year in a row, Eastern Europe and Central Asia led the world's regions, with more than 90 percent of its countries making reforms. And the trend is moving eastward as newcomers join the list of economies making the most reforms, said the report.

Azerbaijan is the world's leading reformer of business regulations this year, with improvements in seven of the 10 areas studied by the report.

Africa also had a record year for regulatory reforms, with 28 countries completing 58 reforms that make it easier to do business-more than in any other year. And three of the world's top 10 economies that reformed their business regulations are from the region.

The top 10 are, in order, Azerbaijan, Albania, the Kyrgyz Republic, Belarus, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Botswana, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and Egypt.

Doing Business ranks economies based on 10 indicators of business regulation that record the time and cost to meet government requirements in starting and operating a business, trading across borders, paying taxes, and closing a business. The rankings do not reflect such areas as macroeconomic policy, quality of infrastructure, currency volatility, investor perceptions, or crime rates, said the report. Singapore leads the global rankings on the overall regulatory ease of doing business for a third consecutive year. New Zealand is runner-up, and the United States third. Bahrain and Mauritius join the ranks of the top 25 this year.

Fael Khair programme Committee meet held

A Management Committee meeting on Fael Khair programme conducted by the Islami Bank Foundation and financed by Islamic Development Bank (IDB) for the assistance of the Cyclone affected people was held on September 11 at the Board Room of Islami Bank Tower. Presided over by Dr Mohammad Hassan Salem, Head of Special Assistance Office, IDB, Jeddah the programme was attended among others by Neaz Khan, General Manager of IDB-Bangladesh Islamic Solidarity Educational Waqf, Kazi Harun ar Rashed & Fazle Azim' Member of Islamic Bank Foundation Committee, Mohd. Shamsul Hoque, Deputy Managing Director and Head of Operations Wing, Md. Nurul Islam, Executive Vice President, Md. Obaidul Haque and Asheque Ahmed Jebal, Senior Vice Presidents and Md. Mahboob Alam, Vice President of Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited.

Profit free Investment amounting Taka ten thousand to taka seventy five thousand will be given under this programme to the Cyclone affected people to buy seeds, fertiliser, pesticide, agricultural tools, domestic animal, fishing boat, fish meal and to the small traders.

It is mentioned that a Memorandum of Understanding amounting $ 45 lac was signed between the Islamic Development Bank and the Islami Bank Foundation on May 13, 2008.

NSU holds Fall Semester 2008 orientation: NSU promises to maintain quality education

The Fall 2008 semester orientation ceremony of the newly enrolled undergraduate students for the Department of Economics of North South University (NSU) was held on 10 September at NSU campus. NSU Foundation Chairman Mr. M. A. Awal attended the ceremony as chief guest. Vice Chancellor Dr. Hafiz G. A. Siddiqi chaired the event. Pro Vice Chancellor Dr. SAM Khairul Bashar, Deans Professor Dr. Amirul Islam Chowdhury and Dr. M. Ali Rashid, Registrar in charge Dr. AKM Atiqur Rahman were present as the guests among others, on the occasion while the Chairman of Economics Dr. Gour Gobinda Goswami conducted the ceremony. The orientation programme of English, CSC, CSE, CEG, ETE and Environmental Science and Management programme were also held on same day. The orientation program of Pharmacy and MPPG program, BBA and Architecture programme were held on 9th and 11th September respectively. Biotechnology, Biochemistry and Microbiology orientation will be held on 19th September at NSU campus.

In his welcoming speech to the fresh students Mr. M.A Awal congratulated the students for choosing NSU Economics Department. He has emphasised on the fact that they are now a part of one of the most reputed economics departments in the country. He also said that NSU promises to maintain quality education. NSU economics graduates are in various high ranking economist positions throughout not only in Bangladesh but also the world in organisations like World Bank etc, he added.

Vice Chancellor Dr. Siddiqi welcomed the new faces and congratulated them for passing the vigorous admission test and also choosing NSU economics department which ranks very highly in the country at the moment. He also encouraged the students to take advantage of this superior department consisting of high quality faculties and resources available to them to flourish in the future.

Pro VC Dr. Bashar elaborated on the fact how the department of economics has grown since the beginning of NSU and the students should feel privileged to be a part of this great department.

Dr. Chowdhury and Dr. Rashid welcomed the students and mentioned the importance of economics in the world. The acting registrar in his speech asked the students to abide by the rules and regulations of NSU at all time.

Merger between JICA and JBIC

The Government of Japan has made institutional realignment to improve the quality of official development assistance (ODA) operations in an effort to conduct ODA policy in a more strategic framework and strengthen its implementation regime.

As part of this development, a new JICA will be born on October 1, 2008, as an aid donor agency providing technical cooperation, concessional loans (ODA loans), and grant aid "under one roof."

As a result of integrating ODA loan operations of the Japem Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) with JICA aid schemes, the new JICA will provide comprehensive assistance for developing countries by making most use of a broader range of aid instruments effectively and efficiently as well as its network of 100 overseas offices across the world.

JICA's Direction in Future Cooperation in Bangladesh will be 1) Balanced development under this; three goals are reflected (i) Economic Growth (ii) Social Development (iii) Good Governance, 2) Quality, Quantity and Capacity Development, and 3) Special focus on Climate Change and disaster management sector related issues.

Bangladesh to require mobile network infrastructure sharing

BUSINESS REPORT

Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), the country's telecoms regulator, has published its guidelines for infrastructure sharing.

Under the procedures, the operators are to be encouraged to share aspects of their network infrastructure, subject to approval from the regulator.

The guidelines are applicable for sharing of passive infrastructures; optical fiber/wired access and backbone transmission network.

The operators shall provide capacity on its infrastructure to other operators on a non-discriminatory "first come, first serve" basis, and if the two companies cannot agree on costs - the regulator will act as arbiter.

Licensees (except the Nationwide Telecommunication Transmission Network's Licensee) will not be permitted to build optical/wired backbone transmission network if such networks of other operators are already available for sharing. Incumbent operators should take necessary measures to augment the capacity of existing optical /wired backbone transmission network for sharing.

The operators will also be required to publish details of infrastructures available for sharing with other operators, although the information can be kept private between the operators and regulator.

The country currently has six operators-and according to figures from the Mobile World, ended the first half of this year with just under 43.7 million mobile subscribers - which is still a population penetration level of 28.5%. Also worth noting is that while the country has six operators, only four of them are of any significant scale, Grameenphone (20.3m), Banglalink (9.5m) and Aktel (7.8m) and finally, Warid Telecom (3.3m). The two remaining long term incumbents, Citycell and Teletalk add up to 2.7 million customers between them.

ILO Director visits BFFEA office

Panudda Boonpala, Director & head of International Labour Organisation (ILO) in Bangladesh has visited two shrimp processing plants and held meeting with the leaders of Bangladesh Frozen Foods Exporters Association (BFFEA) Khulna Region recently. The ILO Country Director has expressed deep satisfaction over the activities of BFFEA to facilitate the labours in shrimp processing industries in Bangladesh. BFFEA leaders at the meeting have apprised the ILO chief that BFFEA could able to eliminate child labour from all shrimp processing industries with the help of the Ministries concern, introduced three shift working hours, issued ID cards to the permanent workers and other facilities.

The meeting with ILO country chief was attended among others by BFFEA Vice President Sk. Md. Abdul Baki; Director S. Humayun Kabir & Md. Ferdous Alam; TIM Nurunnabai Khan, Programme Officer, ILO Dhaka; Md. Rezaul Haque, Managing Director of Modern Sea Food Industries, Khulna; Khondaker Aynul Islam, Managing Director, South Field Fisheries Ltd., Khulna.

NBL's branch managers regional conference of Rajshahi region held regarding SME loan programme

The Regional Conference of the Managers of Rajshahi Region of National Bank Ltd. held at a local Hotel in Bogra recently regarding SME Loan. Mozzam Hossain, Chairman of the Bank was present at the discussion meeting as chief guest while Md Abdur Rahman Sarker, Managing Director of the Bank presided of over the meeting.

Mozzam Hossain directed the Branch Managers of Rajshahi Region to strengthen the SME Loan Programme for poverty elevation of the locality. He also suggested the Managers to extend credit facilities for helping the Farmers for use of good seeds and production of vegetable, local fruits and fish.

Md Abdur Rahman Sarker, Managing Director of the Bank in his speech instructed all the branches of Northern Region for giving SME loan to the poor people and to give priority to the Women Entrepreneurs in this case.

Among others Moshin-Ul-Karim & Azizur Rahman, Deputy Managing Directors, AKM Shafiqur Rahman, Executive Vice President & Board Secretary and Farad Ahmed Chowdhury, Senior Vice President & Rajshahi Regional Head of the Bank were also present on the occasion.

After that Mozzam Hossain, Chairman of the Bank met with the valued clients of Bogra Branch and had an Ifter party with them.

DSE up for 3rd consecutive week to regain stability: Retail investors warned of losing money

UNB, Dhaka

The Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) witnessed gains for the third second consecutive week that ended Thursday, reflecting a healthy sign of slowly regaining the stability of the market from a nine-week slump. The DSE General Index (DGEN), the benchmark index, gained 47 points or about 2 percent to close at 2,850 at the closing of the week on Thursday.

The All Share Price Index (DSI) increased marginally by 9 points or 0.37 percent to close at 2,407 points while the DSE-20 index of selective shares 32 points or 1.34 percent to close at 2,442 points.

The uptrend was, however, based on speculative retail investments while the trade concentration was mainly on 15-20 stocks only. Market players warned small retail investors of losing money if the few shares go through deep price correction. "More than 80 percent of the investment mostly by retail investors went on speculative side," DSE chief executive officer Dr Salahuddin Ahmed Khan told UNB.

He said the country's prime bourse is still dominated by the bank shares, but they received poor investment during the recent uptrend. A fund manager said the market was slowly regaining the stability with a bit healthy volume of trade giving a good signal to the investors. But, he said, the concern is that half of the trade was concentrating on only 15-20 shares. "This is not a very healthy sign," he said, adding that it would pull the price of the few shares beyond their intrinsic value. "The concentration on a few shares may be giving short-term gains, but in case of any deep correction would cause financial losses to the retail investors," said the fund manager. He added that the market has been retail-driven and consequently the possibility of volatility in the market is quite high.

During the last week, the total turnover increased by 25 percent to Tk 17.30 billion, a daily average of Tk 3.46 billion, from Tk 13.80 billion in the previous week. The price earning of the stocks increased by about 2 percent in the week to 20.63 as compared to 20.26 of the previous week. Market capitalisation increased by less than one percent to Tk 994 billion last week from Tk 988 billion in the previous week. The turnover leaders of the week were Titas Gas, BEXIMCO, ACI Limited, ICB 2nd NRB, GrameenS2, Lankabangla Finance Company, AIMS 1st Mutual Fund, Beximco Pharma, S. Alam CRST and Union Capital.

Saleh Carpet has been the top gainer of the week with 59 percent increase in the prices of its shares by closing price, though a DSE investigation revealed Thursday said the company's registered corporate office in Chittagong remained closed since 2003.

Only three "A" category shares-ICB 2nd NRB, Pragati Insurance and AIMS 1st Mutual Fund - were among the top 10 gainers of the week while one from "B" category (Sino Bangla), one from "N" category (GrameenS2) and five from "Z" category ( Saleh Carpet, Shinepukur Holdings, Progressive Life Insurance, BD Luggage and Beximco Fisheries).

Top losers were Rupali Bank, BCIL, Sonargaon Textiles, ICB Islamic Bank Limited, Maq Enterprise, Samorita Hospital, Lexco, Amam Sea Food, Safko Spinnings and Standard Ceramic.

Mobile vegetable sales centre in Muktagachha

BSS, Mymensingh

BADC Udyan Unnayan Kendra, of muktagacha upazila has been operating mobile vegetable and fruit sales centers at the upazila headquarters and some important places of the upazila. Sources said, the main objectives of the programme is to sell different vegetables at fair prices to the people during the month of Ramadan. Deputy director of the Kendra Rabeya Akhhter told BSS that they are selling different varieties of vegetables and fruits in comparatively cheaper prices.

She said mobile vegetables sales centre has been started from the first day of Ramadan and will be continued till the end of the month. Cross section of people specially poor and low income groups people are buying vegetables and fruits from the mobile sale centre at Palli bidduit Samity area, upazila parishad premises, bus stand and others busy places of the poura town. Concerned officials said, good number of people could be able to purchase vegetables with cheaper rate than that of market price every day.