Business

Mukesh Ambani, India’s richest man, added almost $1 billion to his wealth while Gautam Adani gained $400 million on Friday as early vote counting showed Narendra Modi’s opposition bloc is set for the biggest election win in 30 years, reports Bloomberg. Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd., has added $6 billion to his fortune since September ... Read more

The prices of edible oil and pulses went up in the capital’s kitchen markets over the week ending Friday. Traders attributed the price hike to rise in the prices of the items on the wholesale market. The prices of palm and super palm oil increased by Tk 3 a litre and the items were selling at Tk ... Read more

The worst type of loans accounts for 76pc of defaulted loans Bad loans, the worst category of defaulted loans, in the banking sector posted a 15.22-per cent growth in the first quarter of this year compared with that of a negative growth of 19.07 per cent in the last quarter of 2013 due to scheduled ... Read more

The special tribunal to deal with the stock market-related cases will be setup at BHBFC Bhaban instead of Chini Shilpa Bhaban, a BSEC official said. The Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission earlier decided to rent space at Chini Shilpa Bhaban. But the decision was changed following a finance

The Economic Relations Division is likely to frame an online system by the year-end, aiming to strengthen transparency and effectiveness of aid management in Bangladesh for both the government and the development partners through tracking incoming aid flow. The online system, called aid information management

The government is planning to introduce eco tax from the next fiscal year in an attempt to curb pollution by the industrialists, finance minister AMA Muhith on Thursday said. There have been proposals for imposing higher tax on the industries polluting the environment and giving incentives to green industries, he said after

Bangladesh Bank on Thursday asked scheduled banks and payment service providers to preserve records of electronic fund transfer-related transactions for 12 years. To this end, the BB issued a fresh regulation Electronic Fund Transfer-2014 and a circular to the managing directors and chief executive officers of all

The North American retailers have so far inspected 80 per cent of 626 garment factories that supply products to them and two of the factories were closed down on safety grounds as per their recommendations. The Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, the platform of the North American buyers, revealed the update of its inspection of garment ... Read more

The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on Thursday stayed a High Court verdict declaring illegal a Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission notification that sponsor-directors of listed companies individually must hold minimum two per cent shares of the paid-up capital of their respective companies. The Appellate Division chamber judge, Justice Hasan

4 lakh users added in the month after March fall The number of active mobile phone subscribers in the country increased to 11.56 crore in April as private sector operators added four lakh new users in the month after fall in the previous month, showed the latest data of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission. The number ... Read more

Aims to prevent smuggling of the precious metal to India The National Board of Revenue is going to increase duty on import of each 11.66 grams or one bhari of gold bar under baggage rules to Tk 3,300 from the existing Tk 150, officials said. They said that the initiative was taken to prevent smuggling ... Read more

Lack of good and representative governance is the core problem in taxation for the coming budget for 2014-15 financial year, said speakers at a pre-budget discussion meeting on Wednesday. The governance situation is worst at the moment because of increasing incidents of abduction and killing, they said at a meeting jointly organised by the Institute of

The High Court on Wednesday declared illegal a Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission order that had asked sponsor-directors of listed companies to individually hold minimum 2 per cent shares of the paid-up capital of their respective companies. The bench of Justice Quazi Reza-Ul Hoque and

Local and foreign entrepreneurs are not encouraged to make new investment because of political uncertainty, badly hurting the growth prospects of the economy, said Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Wednesday. The main challenge for the government is to restore political stability, without which GDP growth will falter and it will

Scheduled banks other than the new nine banks and non-bank financial institutions will have to spend at least 2.5 per cent of their net profits for corporate social responsibility purposes in a fiscal year, said officials of Bangladesh Bank. The new nine banks will have to spend 10 per cent of their net profits for CSR ... Read more

Dhaka, keen to get duty free access to the US market, has requested Washington to establish two committees on market access and investment, senior commerce ministry officials said. The committees comprising public and private sector representatives could hold period meetings to identify and remove the hurdles to boost trade

The overall shortfall in provision against general and defaulted loans in the banking sector increased by Tk 2,174.59 crore or 843.74 per cent in the first quarter of this year with seven banks failing to keep required provision in the period. According to the latest BB data, the shortfall rose to Tk 2,432.32 crore as of ... Read more

The Dhaka Stock Exchange plans to scrap the existing lot-based trading of shares by October this year in a bid to reduce investors’ hassle in trading odd-lot shares. Once the bourse scraps the lot-based trading system, the investors will be able to trade any amount of shares, DSE managing director Swapan Kumar Bala

Banks, defaulters misuse relaxed rescheduling policy as BB goes soft Defaulted loans in the banking sector increased by Tk 7,589.15 crore in the first three months of this year as many of the loan defaulters, who were allowed to reschedule their loans on the ground of pre-poll political unrest became defaulters again. According to the Bangladesh ... Read more

The Asian Development Bank on Monday reiterated the country’s GDP growth rate at 5.6 per cent because of political unrest surrounding the January 5 election which resulted in declining remittances and export orders in 2013-14 fiscal year. In its quarterly update released on the day, the Manila-based multilateral donor also said that industrial