Month: July 2014

Importers and exporters are bound to pay Tk 47.5 lakh per day as bribe to officials and employees of Chittagong Customs House at different stages of customs procedures, a study of Transparency International Bangladesh said on Monday. On the other hand, importers have to pay Tk 17.2 lakh

Bangladesh Bank on Monday asked the scheduled banks to set up customer services and complaint management cells in their headquarters and branches to settle the complaints of clients in the shortest possible time. The BB issued a circular and guidelines to managing directors and chief executive officers of all banks asking them to set up the ... Read more

The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission will revise the draft handset import rules which will be carried out by the spectrum division instead of previous combined effort from other departments, said officials. The BTRC in April published a draft directive saying

Dhaka stocks advanced on Monday after a nine-day fall as institutional investors bought shares to avail lower prices of securities after the bear run. The key index of Dhaka Stock Exchange, DSEX, closed at 4,376.89 points, adding 0.74 per cent or 32.53 points. The DSEX had lost 142.71 points in the previous nine trading sessions. Market operators said ... Read more

New Margin Loan Ratio BMBA seeks clarification Bangladesh Merchant Bankers Association has requested the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission to clarify the newly-imposed margin loan ratio implementation process. BMBA president Tanjil Chowdhury made the request in a letter sent to the BSEC chairman, M Khairul Hossain, on Sunday. The letter enquired whether the newly-imposed margin loan 1:0.50 ... Read more

Export earnings from India hit four-year low at $456.63 million in the just concluded financial year 2013-14 while the exports to China skyrocketed by 62.85 per cent in the fiscal year. Experts and exporters said that the export to India witnessed a decreasing trend due to non-tariff barriers and devaluation of the currency of the country. On ... Read more

India’s government of prime minister Narendra Modi has lowered the grants for Bangladesh in the current year’s national budget by 40 per cent to Rs 350 crore as against Rs 580 crore last year. Bangladesh is the only country in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation region for which the Indian budget has made lower ... Read more

Investors stage protest Dhaka stocks declined for the ninth trading session on Sunday with the turnover hitting fresh nine-month low due to low participation of institutional invests since the June 30 half-yearly closing. The key index of Dhaka Stock Exchange, DSEX, lost 0.42 per cent, or 18.72 points, to close at 4,344.36 points on the day. The ... Read more

Myanmar attracted $176 million in foreign investment last month, thus bringing the nation’s total contracted foreign investment to $46.71 billion as of June 2014 since 1988 when Myanmar opened its door to the outside world, local media reported on Sunday. In June, the investment from Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and China’s Hong Kong mainly ... Read more

Deposits at BASIC Bank declined by Tk 997.56 crore in six months of this year as the depositors gave the state-owned bank the cold shoulder after Bangladesh Bank had detected huge irregularities at the bank, according to a finance ministry report. Experts and economists told New Age on Friday

Retailers’ group to double compensation for displaced factory workers Alliance for Bangladesh Workers Safety, a platform of 26 North American retailers and brands, on Thursday announced to double compensation benefits for workers from two months to up to four months wages for those displaced as a result of factory remediation. The Alliance on Thursday has already ... Read more

Commodity prices remained high in the city’s kitchen markets over the week ending Friday. Since the beginning of Ramadan, the fasting month for Muslims, the prices of most of the vegetables including aubergine shot up and maintained high prices over the week. The prices of aubergine and green chilli remained unchanged. Aubergine was selling at Tk 100

Interest spread rate in the banking sector hit 17-month high in May as scheduled banks massively cut interest rates on their deposit products due to increasing trend in excess liquidity in the banks. According to the latest Bangladesh Bank data, the interest spread, gap between the interest rates on credit and deposit, stood at 5.22 percentage ... Read more

The agriculture ministry in the current season is giving top priority to increase cultivation and production of Aman rice, a major crop that requires less irrigation to grow. To inspire the growers for Aman cultivation, the ministry has kept on providing incentives worth Tk 10 crore that included seeds, fertilisers and cash money, said senior officials. The ... Read more