Business

Containing Taka Appreciation BB’s dollar purchase spree goes in vain The dollar again started to depreciate against the taka from February 26 this year, after a steady run in the previous nine months, despite the fact that Bangladesh Bank in a frantic effort to keep the price of the dollar stable purchased greenbacks worth $3.63 ... Read more

The price of ginger shot up on the retail markets in the city over the week ending Friday due to a supply shortage. Traders said that the country depends mainly on the imported ginger to meet local demand for the spice due to thin domestic production of the item. The price of ginger increased by Tk ... Read more

10 lakh tonnes of Boro rice to be collected this season The government on Thursday fixed the procurement price of per kilogram Boro rice at Tk 31. The newly fixed price is Tk 2 up from the last season’s price, food minister Qumrul Islam told reporters after a meeting with the national food committee at ... Read more

Icc T20 Cricket NBR rejects plea for ticket sales VAT exemption Organisers of the International Cricket Council T20 World Cup will have to pay value-added tax on sales of tickets as the National Board of Revenue rejected an exemption plea of Bangladesh Cricket Board in this regard, officials of the revenue board said. The VAT wing ... Read more

The Insurance Development and Regulatory Authority on Thursday formed a probe committee to investigate the reported attempt by the Standard Group to embezzle money through false insurance claim following a fire incident in one of its garment factory in Gazipur. A three-member committee, under supervision of IDRA consultant AKM Iftekhar Ahmed, will

Trading System Purchase DSE inks high-cost deals with 2 US cos today The Dhaka Stock Exchange has decided that it will strike final deals with two US-based companies today to procure costly trading systems for the bourse keeping in mind its plan of introducing derivative and commodity markets in future. The bourse made the decision at ... Read more

Consumers will get power connections within 40 days after applying instead of waiting for long, said state minister for power, energy and mineral resources Nasrul Hamid Bipu on Thursday. The government is planning to install Fast Track Centre to provide new power connection within 40 days after applying to ease the consumers’ sufferings, said

The implementation of the annual development programme continued at a slow pace as only 38 per cent of the ADP funds was used in July-February period of the current financial year compared to 44 per cent in the same period of the previous year. Planning ministry officials said low utilisation of both government allocation and project ... Read more

Rana Plaza Donor’s Fund RMG workers to get Tk 50,000 each by April 15 The Rana Plaza compensation coordination committee has decided that a total of 3,639 workers who worked at the five garment factories housed in the collapsed building at Savar will get Tk 50,000 each from the Rana Plaza Donor’s Trust Fund by ... Read more

Suspends bond licence of Hallmark Design Wear The National Board of Revenue has suspended the bond license of Hallmark Design Wear Ltd, a sister concern of controversial Hallmark Group, and demanded Tk 116 crore as duties and taxes from the company for not exporting products under bond license, officials of the NBR said. They said that ... Read more

Nine scheduled banks including six new ones failed to disburse any farm loan in the first eight months of the current financial year 2013-14. The banks are Farmers Bank, Meghna Bank, Midland Bank, National Bank of Pakistan, NRB Bank, State Bank of India, South Bangla Agriculture Commerce Bank, Union Bank and Woori Bank. The BB has already ... Read more

Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Wednesday recommended the National Board of Revenue for increasing tax-free income limit to Tk 3 lakh from the existing Tk 2.20 lakh for individual taxpayer in the coming budget for the next financial year of 2014-15. It also suggested the NBR to increase the rate of tax

The planning ministry has identified as least 96 on-going priority development projects involving Tk 1,644 crore under the current annual development programme because of slow implementation, officials said. Of the total 1,245 projects, the planning ministry also identified 281 projects as mid-priority which involved Tk 11,486 crore and another 868 projects as

Bangladesh Bank on Tuesday set the charge of Tk 10 for each inter-bank transaction for clients through automated teller machines under its National Payment Switch Bangladesh (NPSB) project. The central bank also set charge of Tk 5 for mini statement or balance inquiry in the inter-bank transactions through ATM machines under its

The country’s overall imports increased by 13.60 per cent in February of this year against a negative growth of 12.84 per cent in the corresponding month of the last year due mainly to higher import of food products. According to Bangladesh Bank data, the overall settlement of letters of credit, generally known as actual import, stood ... Read more

Garment Factory Inspection Retailers’ teams to talk pledges, conspiracy theory in April High-ups of North American and European retailers groups are coming to Dhaka in early April to discuss garment factory safety inspection issue following government’s and factory owners’ criticism of strict inspection standards and allegation of conspiracy. Garment factory owners and commerce minister Tofail Ahmed recently ... Read more

Bangladesh Bank has recently asked scheduled banks to submit business plan on how to bring down their excess investment limit in the capital market by July 2016. To this end, the central bank issued separate letters in the last few weeks to managing directors and chief executive officers of the banks, whose investment

Primark, an Irish clothing retailer, on Monday announced to pay out $10 million in compensation to victims or their dependents of the Rana Plaza factory collapse weeks before the anniversary of the disaster in which more than 1,100 garment workers lost their lives. The retailer has agreed to pay $9 million to

The credit- or advance-deposit ratio in the banking sector declined to 70.83 per cent as of February 6, 2014 compared with that of 76.28 per cent as of February 7, 2013 as credit demand in the private sector had not increased much following the recent political turmoil, said Bangladesh Bank officials. The ADR was 76.59 per ... Read more

The first meeting under the Trade and Investment Cooperation Forum Agreement between Dhaka and Washington will be held in the last week of April next, said an official on Monday. ‘The meeting will be held in the last week of April as proposed by the US side,’ Commerce secretary Mahbub Ahmed told the news agency. The ... Read more