Business

The country’s trade gap with India remained high at $4.17 billion in the recently concluded 2012-13 financial year as different non-tariff and para-tariff barriers continued to limit Bangladesh’s exports to the neighbouring country. Bangladesh officials had earlier hoped that the country’s trade gap with India, which stood at $4.24 billion in FY 2011-12,

The scope encouraged mobile operators to buy low sprectrum: BTRC officials The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission’s auction for 3G service licences flopped because of the BTRC’s decision to allow mobile phone companies to offload cellular data to WiFi network just before the auction, said officials. BTRC officials said all the operators

The Bangladesh Bank on Tuesday asked the scheduled banks to open bank accounts with an initial deposit of Tk 100 for readymade garments workers so that the workers could receive their wages and allowances through the accounts. To this end, the BB issued a circular to managing directors and chief executive officers of all banks asking ... Read more

The fourth weeklong income tax fair on Tuesday drew huge number of visitors at the fair venues including at the Officers’ Club in Dhaka for receiving income tax-related services and information from the tax officials. Overcoming the technical glitches that marred the first day of the fair, the National Board of Revenue officials provided uninterrupted services

Sonali Bank on Tuesday said that its large amount of defaulted loans was the main obstacle on the bank’s way to surge forward. The bank faced troubles in 2012 due to a financial scam at its Ruposhi Bangla branch, which pushed up the bank’s defaulted loan, Sonali Bank managing director Prodip Kumar Dutta said at a ... Read more

The Bangladesh Bank on Monday directed the commercial banks to reduce their stock market investment to 25 per cent of the total of four components of core capital in the share market by 2016 in line with the newly enacted bank companies act. The BB directive also said from now

Ten scheduled banks, including seven state-run ones, have failed to maintain the minimum 10 per cent capital adequacy ratio against their risk-weighted assets as of June 30 due to their huge amount of defaulted loans and a declining trend in retained earning. Besides, the overall CAR in the banking

Representatives of the North American Alliance for Bangladesh Workers Safety Initiative on Monday said they would inspect the garment factories in Bangladesh in a transparent way to ensure sustainable change in the garment sector. The members of the Alliance have submitted

Taxpayers faced awful experience at the first day of the fourth weeklong income tax fair that began on Monday as the National Board of Revenue could hardly provide new taxpayers identification numbers or replace the old TINs online due to technical glitches. Except some exception, the NBR

None of the 17 cases related to stock market scams in 1996 and 2010-11 have so far been disposed of even after the appointments of two new lawyers to deal with the cases, Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission informed the finance ministry on Sunday. The BSEC sent the report on the progress

Bb’s Financial Stability Report For 2012 Volatile stocks, bank scams destabilise financial sector  The Bangladesh Bank on Sunday said the stability of the country’s financial sector was adversely affected by the capital market volatility, financial scams in the banking sector, and declining trend in the real GDP growth. The BB presented the observations in its financial ... Read more

The National Board of Revenue on Sunday rewarded 403 income taxpayers from across the country in recognition to their contributions as the highest and long-time taxpayers. The NBR handed over tax cards, crests and certificates to the taxpayers at seven different programmes in divisional headquarters organised on the

The group’s team holds meeting with govt officials Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety Initiative, a consortium of North American clothing brands and retailers, will complete inspection of a total of 500 readymade garment factories, which supply products to them, by July next year as scheduled, labour secretary Mikail Shipar said on Sunday. He said this after ... Read more

State-run Pragati Industries Limited is willing to assemble Pajero ASX model mini jeep which has a good demand in the local market, Pragati officials said. The said that they sent a proposal for assembling Pajero ASX model mini jeep to Mitsubishi Motors Corporation, the Japanese manufacturers, in June.

The Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission has cancelled an application of the Investment Corporation of Bangladesh for merging its nine mutual funds, which will finish their tenure this year, with the Bangladesh Fund. The Bangladesh Fund, a Tk 5,000-crore stock market stabilisation fund, has so far managed around Tk 1,600 crore. The fund

Dhaka stocks rebounded on Sunday, the first trading session of the week, with a higher turnover as the investors were active on the trading floor to buy shares on the cheap. The benchmark general index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange, DSEX, increased to 4,123.90 points, adding 1.12 per cent, or 45.95 points. DS30,

The Bangladesh Bank has opposed a plan of the government to increase interest rates of national savings certificates saying that the proposed measure will hurt the business of banks as their cost of obtaining funds will increase. Once the yield rates on the national saving certificates are increased, the banks will have to hike the interest ... Read more

A 12-member delegation of the North American Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety Initiative will arrive in Dhaka today to discuss in details its five-year action plan to ensure safety standards at the Bangladeshi readymade garment factories. During the three-day visit, the delegation

Election Manifesto Political parties urged to reach consensus on economic issues Politicians and businessmen at a seminar on Saturday said two major political parties must have a consensus on economic issues in their election manifestoes for the sake of business and industrialisation and avoid anti-development political programmes like hartal. They said this at a discussion ... Read more

Income Tax Day today The National Board of Revenue has taken a set of actions to eliminate hassles in getting taxpayer’s identification number online or e-TIN, NBR officials said. They said that they had included edit and validate options in the e-TIN registration and re-registration process as the taxpayers had been facing problems