Weekly News Clippings (September 19, 2013)

Price rockets due to trading racket (The Daily Star, September 19, 2013)
The steep rise in onion prices is not just due to a supply cut from India, but also an artificial supply shortage created by a band of traders. According to a study conducted by International Food Policy Research Institute, a food policy research think tank, the market supply of onions in Bangladesh declined not only because of the reduction in imports from India, but also due to local traders taking advantage of the situation by cutting the supplies of their stored onions to the market in order to make extra profits. The study has been made public at a time when prices of onions rose after a brief respite for a couple of weeks.

Bangladeshi RMG still yields more profit to retailers (The Financial Express, September 18, 2013)
Bangladesh still remains the most profitable place for global retailers of readymade garments. According to a study conducted by McKinsey & Co, a leading New York-based business consulting firm, the country attracts retailers due to a large number of garment factories and low minimum wages in spite of the occurrence of repetitive industrial disasters than any other garment-producing country. Eighty per cent of the retailers participating in the survey plan to reduce sourcing from China over the next five years, primarily because of rising labour costs. The $20 billion garment business of the country has sped past rivals such as Vietnam and Cambodia.

FBCCI seeks duty-free benefits from Russia(The Daily Star, September 18, 2013)
The Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) have requested the Russian government to grant duty-free market benefits to Bangladeshi products. The president of FBCCI encouraged the Russian entrepreneurs to invest in power generation, gas, mining, agro-processing, leather goods, electrical and electronics, engineering industries, pharmaceuticals and agricultural machinery. The present trade volume between the two countries is around $543.59 million, with the balance of trade being in favour of Russia. In fiscal 2012-13, the country’s import from Russia stood at $335.30 million against the export of $208.29 million.

North American alliance agrees to follow national building code (The Daily Star, September 17, 2013)
The Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, a coalition of 22 North American retailers to improve factory conditions in Bangladesh, has agreed to follow the Bangladesh National Building Code in its garment factory inspections. The alliance has prepared a common set of fire and building safety standards for garment factories in Bangladesh by working with experts. The standards not only align with the Bangladesh National Building Code but also support the National Tripartite Plan of Action.

NBR salutes top taxpayers(The Daily Star, September 16, 2013)
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 occasion of the National Income Tax Day-2013.

Remittances dip in Bangladesh, strain economy(Times of Oman, September 15, 2013)
Due to the fall in the number of Bangladeshis workers going abroad there has been a sizeable dip in inward remittances. According to the economists, the ongoing tension in the Middle East played a major role behind it. The aggregate remittance earnings during the April-August 2013 period have dropped by more than $100 million from the corresponding period last year. If the downtrend persists, it might destabilize the balance of payments situation and pose a threat to the country's existing foreign exchange reserves.

Doing Business in Bangladesh(The New York Times, September 14, 2013)
Owners of clothing factories in Dhaka, Bangladesh had a candid conversation with a New York Times correspondent after a meeting with clothing industry executives, labor activists and American and European government officials at New York University last week. According to them one of the major problems includes huge orders by stores like Wal-Mart which exceed the capacity of the factory which is why a need arises for sending some of the work to smaller producers, “unofficially”. This is called unauthorized subcontracting to smaller, uninspected factories. It is a primary reason safety guidelines that apply to bigger contractors have not prevented the hundreds of worker deaths in fires and building collapses in facilities like Rana Plaza, which crumbled last April killing 1,129 people. The factory owners admitted that what they were doing was wrong. But they said Western clothing companies were also culpable because they often award contracts to manufacturers that they know do not have enough machines and employees to do the job.

UK safety experts visit Bangladesh(Independent. ie, September 14, 2013)
A team of three, two from the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors and one from the Better Regulation Delivery Office, will be coming to Bangladesh to advise the country’s building regulations agency on how to tighten up its inspections regime. The visit follows the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Dhaka earlier this year.

Tesco team due Sunday(The Daily Star, September 13, 2013)
A team from the British retail giant Tesco is due in Bangladesh on September 15, aiming to expand its customer base in the country. According to a Tesco spokes person, the company’s group commercial director will be in Bangladesh next week to meet with a range of local suppliers. Industry insiders said the high-level Tesco team will also visit Liberty Fashions, a Savar-based garment factory, from where the company stopped sourcing after its own surveyors detected structural flaws in the design of the factory building.

Retailers divided over Bangladesh factory victims compensation(Reuters, September 12, 2013)
A group of retailers and clothing brands have failed to establish compensation funds for the victims of two Bangladesh factory disasters, as many companies that sourced clothes from the buildings decided not to participate in the process. Only nine out of the 28 brands attended the Geneva meeting, with some of the absentees saying that they preferred to pursue their own compensation plans or citing issues with the approach adopted at the talks. The collapse of Rana Plaza, a factory built on swampy ground about 20 miles outside Bangladesh's capital city Dhaka, ranks among the world's worst industrial accidents and has galvanized brands to try to improve safety standards at suppliers.

Bangladesh orders legal action against Yunus(Las Vegas Sun, September 12, 2013)
The Bangladesh government has ordered legal action against the country's Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, accusing him of evading taxes on overseas income received from book royalties, speeches at conferences and numerous awards. Yunus has issued a statement denying the allegations. Yunus was ousted last year as managing director of pioneering small-loan provider Grameen Bank after the High Court ruled the 73-year-old violated retirement laws by serving beyond the age of 60. He won the Nobel peace prize in 2006.