Weekly News Clippings (July 18, 2013)

6 days of waste (The Daily Star, July 18, 2013)

This week has seen only one working day as the Jamaat-e-Islami has called four countrywide hartals four days in a row from Monday, protesting the war crimes trial and the recent verdicts. Today’s hartal is to protest the death sentence of Jamaat Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed. The International Crimes Tribunal delivered the verdict yesterday, two days after it handed down 90 years’ imprisonment on former Jamaat chief Ghulam Azam.

Formalin added to fruits after import (The Financial Express, July 17, 2013)

Fruits and frozen foods, including fish, are being imported in a formalin-free condition, but the harmful chemical is being added to the food items at different stages of marketing locally. Officials at the Chittagong Port came up with the findings after three-month long formalin tests on imported food items and fruit (including apples and oranges) from different countries, including China, Brazil, South Africa and the USA.

Deposits pile up as demand for credit goes down (The Daily Star, July 17, 2013)

Banks’ deposit growth has surpassed credit growth by 9 percentage points, which may take a toll on their profits and affect the savers. Profit of most banks marked a fall in the first half this year due to a huge gap between deposit and credit. According to central bank statistics, the amount of deposit grew by 17.74 percent on June 13, while credit rose by 9.41 percent, compared to that of last year’s. Banks are giving interest to their depositors but cannot invest the deposited money, as a result of which their cost is going up. Bank officials said that most banks have already started cutting the interest rates on deposits to rein in the cost. 

Under Pressure, Bangladesh Adopts New Labor Law (The New York Times, July 16, 2013)

Bangladeshi lawmakers have adopted a new labour law three weeks after the United States suspended Bangladesh’s trade preferences. Moreover, the European Union has threatened to revoke Bangladesh’s trade privileges on the grounds that labour rights and safety violations were far too prevalent in the country’s factories. Under the new law, factories will be required to set aside 5 percent of its profits for a welfare fund for employees, although the law exempts export-oriented factories. However, the Human Rights Watch criticized the new law saying that it would make unionizing harder as it added more industrial sectors, including hospitals, where workers are not permitted to form unions. The group also noted that workers in Bangladesh’s important export processing zones would remain legally unable to unionize.

BB gains some control over state banks (The Daily Star, July 15, 2013)

The government has finally empowered Bangladesh Bank (BB) to remove the chief executive officer of any state bank to prevent activities harmful to depositors. However, the authority to remove the chairmen and directors of the banks remains at the hands of the government. The changes came in the Banking Companies (Amendment) Bill, which was made under the conditions of the Extended Credit Facility loans of the International Monetary Fund and passed in parliament. Earlier when various scams were unearthed in different state banks, the BB had urged the government to take action against the boards of the banks. In this context, the IMF had recommended empowering the central bank with the authority to take actions against the state banks.

Bangladesh Pollution, Told in Colors and Smells (The New York Times, July 14, 2013)

Bangladesh has laws to protect the environment, a national environment ministry and new special courts for environmental cases. Yet pollution is rising, not falling, experts say, largely because of the political and economic power of industry. Bangladesh’s garment and textile industries have contributed to severe water pollution especially in the large industrial areas of Dhaka, the capital. Many rice fields are now inundated with toxic wastewater. Fish stocks are dying and many smaller waterways are being filled and sold by developers as plots. Tanneries and pharmaceutical plants are part of the problem, but textile and garment factories, a mainstay of the economy and a crucial source of employment, have the most important role to play.

City dwellers face acute gas shortage in Ramadan (The New Age, July 13, 2013)

Residents in many areas of Dhaka and Narayanganj are facing acute shortage of gas supply to their kitchens forcing them to use kerosene stoves or makeshift ovens. Since the last few days, gas supply in many parts of Dhaka and Narayanganj stops at dawn and resumes at mid-night. Titas Gas Distribution Company is responsible for gas supply to the households, commercial spaces, power stations and factories in Dhaka and its adjacent districts. Managing Director of Titas said that the company was directed to prioritise power plants for gas supply which causes shortage of gas supply to the households.

Uniqlo looks to cash in on Bangladesh's middle class (BBC News, July 12, 2013)

Uniqlo outlet, the first of any major global retail clothing brand in Bangladesh, has recently opened styled as a social business under the Grameen Uniqlo brand. The idea is to reinvest profits and create employment through the manufacturing of clothes and its planned nationwide network of stores. Nearly $100bn is spent on private consumption in the country every year, according to the latest World Bank data, with non-essential items such as fashion retail accounting for a growing proportion of that number. As is the case among many of its Asian neighbours, this growth in consumption is being fuelled by the growing middle class. "Many Bangladeshis are now travelling abroad and taking holidays abroad," says Prof Imran Rahman, vice chancellor and director of the School of Business at the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh.