Business

NBR has to collect Tk 56,584cr more in 4 months The National Board of Revenue in the first eight months of the current fiscal year collected only 54.73 per cent of the downsized revenue target set for the entire fiscal year as the growth in revenue collection remained slow, officials said. According to the latest data, ... Read more

Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission has decided to formulate a cost model to determine the pricing of different services of mobile telecom companies, said BTRC officials. They said BTRC would appoint a consultant soon for the cost modelling of the telcos. The voice service, short and multimedia massage service, video call service and

Say manufacturers need more money to improve workplace safety The country’s apparel sector leaders on Saturday criticised the global retailers for not increasing prices of the products to help the manufacturers improve workplace safety after the Rana Plaza tragedy. ‘Relocation and remediation are the two main challenges for the manufacturers to make the RMG industry safer ... Read more

Biman chairman Jamal Uddin Ahmed has said that it would not be possible to resume Dhaka-New York flight before next summer although immediate past CEO Kevin Steel had declared that the airlines would fly to America continent in summer this year. ‘It would not be wise to resume the flight before

The National Board of Revenue has withdrawn value-added tax on commission indenting agents get in foreign currencies from overseas companies, officials said. They said the revenue board had withdrawn 15 per cent VAT on the commission considering the indenting services as export of services.

The prices of broiler, red lentil and ginger increased in the city’s kitchen markets over the week ending Friday. Traders said an increased demand pushed up the broiler price and the price of imported red lentil rose as the import of the item declined. Retailers blamed wholesalers for the ginger price rise.

US-Japan talks aimed at a trade deal seen as vital to a broader regional pact are in stalemate, Japan’s economy minister said, as negotiators struggle to narrow gaps ahead of a summit between the countries’ leaders. A US-Japan agreement is critical to the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation grouping that would stretch from Asia to Latin ... Read more

China’s property market could threaten Beijing’s plan to manage a slowdown in growth, as evidence mounts of a rapid cooling in what had been one of the few strong spots in the world’s second-largest economy. So far, the economic story is going to script, with growth of 7.4 per cent in the first quarter from a ... Read more

The Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission has tightened the rules empowering itself to conduct special audit of the banks, non-banking financial institutions and insurance companies in a bid to prevent manipulative audit-reporting of the listed companies. As per the latest amendment to the Securities and

The credit- or advance-deposit ratio in the banking sector continued to decline in February this year due to a dull business environment, said Bangladesh Bank officials. According to the latest BB data, the ADR in the banking sector dropped to 70.35 per cent as of February 20, 2014 compared with that of 76.20 per cent

The country’s export earning growth slumped for fourth month in March as most of the export sectors, including garment, continued to struggle to pick up pace following the political violence surrounding the national elections and global buyers’ uneasiness over factory safety issue. The earning in March of the current financial year 2013-2014 registered

Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, a group of North American retailers, on Thursday said that it would pay 50 per cent of wages to workers for two months if production at any of the garment factories is suspended because of its safety inspection. The Alliance chair Ellen Tauscher made the

The Asian Development Bank has appointed Kazuhiko Higuchi as the new country director for its Bangladesh resident mission. ‘I am looking forward to working for Bangladesh, and the people of Bangladesh,’ Kazuhiko Higuchi was quoted as saying in a statement by the ADB in Dhaka on Thursday. ‘Bangladesh is progressing fast and ADB will continue to make

Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association president Atiqul Islam on Thursday alleged that international buyers were pulling out their business from readymade garment factories situated in shared buildings. He cited that in last six months they cancelled export orders worth US$ 110 million from 57 such factories. At a pre-budget

Farm loan disbursement posted a 12.21-per cent growth in nine months of the current financial year 2013-14 compared with that in the same period of the FY13 even though seven scheduled banks including four new banks did not disburse any loan to the farmers in the period. According to the Bangladesh Bank data released on Thursday, ... Read more

The government has set a revenue collection target of Tk 1,49,000 crore for National Board of Revenue for the next fiscal year of 2014-15, the NBR chairman Ghulam Hussain said on Wednesday. At a pre-budget discussion with export-oriented sectors without bond facility, automobiles and transport sectors (land, waterway and airways), he said that

Formulating guidelines for such campaigns The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission has initiated a move to formulate guidelines for recharge-based promotional campaigns of the mobile phone companies operating in the country, said officials. The mobile phone companies often offer bonus on mobile talk-time recharge and such offers are not properly regulated, they said.

The Insurance Development and Regulatory Authority has tightened immovable asset purchasing rules to check fraudulent activities by insurance companies in buying such assets, particularly land, an IDRA official told New Age on Wednesday. The insurance regulator this week issued separate letters to all the insurance companies in the light of its

North American retailers’ group on Wednesday assured the garment factory owners that its members would not pull out their business they are doing with the Bangladesh apparel factories housed in shared buildings. The group also assured of its all-out support towards improving the working condition in Bangladesh’s readymade garment sector. The

A UN-backed scheme to compensate victims of Bangladesh’s Rana Plaza factory collapse is barely one-third full, despite pressure on dozens of western brands to assume some financial responsibility for one of the world’s deadliest industrial accidents of modern times, reports The Guardian. A year after the tragedy, which killed more than 1,100 workers and