Business

A year after Bangladesh’s Rana Plaza factory complex collapsed, killing more than 1,100 workers and injuring more than 2,000 in the worst disaster in the history of the garment industry, protesters gathered Thursday outside the Walmart Neighbourhood Market in Lakeview to demand the world’s largest retailer commit more money to helping the survivors and

The implementation of the annual development programme failed to pick pace in nine months of the current fiscal year as the implementation rate was 43 per cent in July-March of 2013-14 compared with that of 49 per cent in the same period of the previous year. Planning ministry officials said low utilisation of government allocation and project ... Read more

Western fashion brands faced pressure Thursday to honour promises to care for Bangladesh’s victims of the world’s worst garment factory accident, ahead of protests on the one-year anniversary of the disaster that cost 1,138 lives. Workers are set to stage demonstrations in front of the site of the now infamous nine-storey Rana Plaza complex in the ... Read more

The Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh on Thursday sought a set of tax benefits in the next national budget for telecommunications sector saying that high tax burden was holding back the investors from new investment. At a pre-budget discussion with the National Board of Revenue, Robi Axiata Ltd chief operating officer Mahtab Uddin Ahmed, while

Centre for Policy Dialogue, a civil society think-tank has urged the authorities to fulfil their commitments to help the victims of Rana Plaza tragedy and their families. The call came at a keynote paper presented at a seminar to mark the first anniversary of the worst industrial disaster of the modern world that killed 1,134 garment

The National Board of Revenue has raised the supplementary duty on soft drinks to 25 per cent from the existing 15 per cent to check tax evasion by energy drink producers, officials of the NBR said. They said that energy drink makers were abusing the existing tax facility given to the soft drink sector. Currently, energy drinks ... Read more

Commerce minister Tofail Ahmed urged international brands and retailers to pay more for Bangladeshi apparel items as the costs of exporting garment products have gone up due to spike in wages for garment workers. He said the global buyers of Bangladeshi clothing though promised a lot to meet the needs of affected workers  caused by the ... Read more

Bangladesh’s export to India has stagnated as the country is failing to reap the benefit of duty-free market access due to lack of government effort and coordination, said economists in a dialogue on Tuesday. They said non-tariff barriers like certification and accreditation and cumbersome procedure and documentation put by India and local infrastructure crisis,

International Labour Organisation deputy director general Gilbert Fossoun Houngbo on Tuesday hoped that the garment sector of Bangladesh will go ahead taking lessons from the tragic Rana Plaza incident. In a day-long orientation programme on Freedom of Association for the officials of newly registered trade unions in the readymade garment sector held at a city hotel,

The Rana Plaza Coordination Committee, a body of representatives of global trade unions, retailers, government and factory owners, on Tuesday formally started distributing compensation from a fund of donors’ among families of deceased, injured workers and survivors of the building collapse. The number of total beneficiaries from the fund, which was created to

A year after the collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory building left more than 1,100 dead, Washington says it remains concerned about worker safety and rights in Bangladesh. In a briefing for journalists, a group of senior US officials said progress had been made getting the government in Dhaka to crack down on dangerous practices and ... Read more

The National Board of Revenue chairman Ghulam Hussain on Tuesday blasted the real estate and housing developers for committing undervaluation of prices of land and apartments during registration to evade taxes. The NBR chief also raised questions for not reducing the prices of land and apartments though realtors were getting huge tax break.

A National Board of Revenue committee on SIM replacement tax in its fresh final report last week maintained its claim for Tk 3,010.99 crore in tax from four mobile operators — Grameenphone, Robi, Banglalink and Airtel, said officials. The NBR has been demanding the amount in tax since early 2012 claiming that the operators had dodged ... Read more

Nitol Niloy Group and India’s largest two-wheeler maker Hero MotoCorp on Monday signed a joint venture agreement to set up a motor cycle plant in Bangladesh. The plant will go for full commercial production by the second quarter of the fiscal year of 2015-2016 with an annual production capacity of 1.5 lakh units.

China’s car market is just gearing up as the world’s largest, yet automakers are already eyeing the next big thing — the market for reselling them. Their eagerness to attract buyers in the world’s largest car market is on full display at the Beijing International Automotive Exhibition, which opened

The country’s payment system operators and payment system providers will have to procure licences from Bangladesh Bank to conduct their business operation, said officials of the central bank. Payment system operator (PSO) refers to an entity for operating a settlement system for payment activities between participants of which the principal participant must be a

Local entrepreneurs on Monday demanded that the National Board of Revenue should provide tax and duty benefits to local industries to protect them from uneven competition with imported finished goods. They also urged the revenue board to prevent under-invoicing and misdeclaration of products by the importers. At a pre-budget discussion, representatives

The government is likely to enhance the existing limits for spending development and non-development funds to procure goods and services by different ministries and agencies between 40 and 60 per cent. Officials of the finance ministry said that the decade-old guidelines on financial powers for development projects and state purchases are set to be revised for ... Read more

The Economic Relations Division has lowered the availability for foreign loans by US$ 420 million in the outgoing fiscal year because of slow utilisation of project aids. ERD officials said initial projection of US$ 3,370 million had been revised to US$ 2,950 million after the ministries and divisions could not improve implementation rate of projects funded ... Read more

The travel cost for each Malaysia bound worker has been further reduced to Tk 24,000, officials said Sunday. The recruitments would take place under government to government arrangements, they said. Thy said that 120 workers are due to leave for Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday and 124 others on Thursday by Biman paying the lowest ever fare per person. Bureau ... Read more