Weekly News Clippings (October 10, 2013)

Only 16pc private firms involved in CSR: survey (The Daily Star, October 10, 2013)
Only 16 percent of private companies in Bangladesh are contributing to social development through their corporate social responsibility activities. According to a survey conducted on 24 companies by Save the Children-Bangladesh, from July to August this year, only four of them have CSR activities. However, forty-six percent of the surveyed companies admitted that CSR and compliance would increase their business opportunities indeed said Shahida Begum, programme director of the education for youth empowerment wing of Save the Children-Bangladesh.

Bangladesh Garment Unit Fire Kills 9 Renewing Safety Fears (Bloomberg, October 9, 2013)
As many as nine people died in a fire at a garment factory on Tuesday evening in the Bangladeshi town of Gazipur, 25 miles north of the capital Dhaka.  About 50 workers were injured in the fire that originated in the knitting section of Aswad Composite Mills factory. The fire started after most workers were gone for the day, which was fortunate as the factory houses an estimated 3,000 workers.  Aswad has supplied goods to two Canadian companies, Loblaws Inc. that owns the Joe Fresh brand, and Hudson’s Bay Co. (HBC).

World Bank to cut $400m from budget (The Daily Star, October 9, 2013)
The World Bank plans to cut $400 million from its budget as part of the global development lender’s first major strategic realignment in 17 years. The figure, along with a new strategy to focus the institution on its poverty-fighting goals, will be presented to its member countries later this week during its annual meetings. According to Bertrand Badre, the bank’s managing director for finance, the ultimate goal of the cuts, along with planned increases in revenue, is to help the bank grow and better serve governments.

‘Consumers talk about brands at all times’ (Dhaka Tribune, October 8, 2013)
Prasun Basu, an expert in the field of innovation, new product development, brand communication research and consultancy, customer loyalty and customer satisfaction, an author, and the Managing Director of the South Asia region of Millward Brown, shares his secrets on how he plans to invade and conquer the local market. 

IMF predicts 6% economic growth for Bangladesh (Dhaka Tribune, October 7, 2013)
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has forecasted Bangladesh’s economic growth at below 6% in the 2013-14 fiscal year as opposed to the government’s target of 7.2% for the period. According to Rodrigo Cubero, the IMF mission chief to Dhaka, the “economic indicators are likely to slow down over the next six months due to political uncertainty, labour unrest and poor demand of private sector credit.” He also announced the release of a $140.5m fund for Bangladesh under a three-year extended credit facility (ECF), which will bring the total disbursement under the arrangement to about $562.3m.

Rawhide prices likely to be higher this year (The Financial Express, October 6, 2013)
The tanners are predicting high prices of rawhides due to the rising demand for Bangladeshi leather goods in the global market. To counter this, Bangladesh Tanners Association (BTA) has set a target of collecting 130 million square feet of rawhides in the upcoming Eid-ul-Azha. In this fiscal year government earning from leather and leather goods will be $ 670 million. The export earnings from leather and leather goods have risen to 23% than that of the previous year. Though China and India are the competitors for Bangladesh, the global buyers are shifting to Bangladesh due to lower production cost.

Bangladesh among top 10 earners (The Financial Express, October 5, 2013)
Bangladesh is among the top 10 recipients of officially recorded remittances for 2013, which is larger than the national foreign exchange reserve. According to a World Bank report, Bangladesh’s foreign exchange reserve continued to swell crossing the $16-billion mark, over the last few years. The top recipients of officially recorded remittance for 2013 are India (with an estimated $71 billion), China ($60 billion), the Philippines ($26 billion), Mexico ($22 billion), Nigeria ($21 billion), and Egypt ($20 billion). The other large recipients are Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Ukraine.

Tk 100cr for garment factory upgrade (The Daily Star, October 4, 2013)
The central bank has created a fund of Tk 100 crore with the assistance of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to improve safety standards in the apparel sector. Factory owners will receive the loan from commercial banks at 10 percent interest for rebuilding and relocating of factories and purchase of equipment. The decision was made following the Rana Plaza tragedy. A technical team of JICA and engineers of the housing and public ministry will inspect the factories before the banks sanction the funds. JICA wants Bangladesh to adopt Japanese retrofitting technology to ensure worker safety. Retrofitting means making changes to the systems inside the building or even the structure itself at some point after its initial construction and occupation.

Litre of Light(The Daily Star, October 4, 2013)
Sajid Iqbal, a student of North South University, majoring in Environmental Science, took it upon himself to use an invention by Alfredo Moser, a Brazilian innovator. Moser, along with a group of MIT students, produced a 55-watt solar bulb, refracting sunlight with the help of old plastic bottles. These contained water and chlorine. Known as “a litre of light”, these were powerful enough to light up a home, environmentally friendly, inexpensive, and easy to make. Sajid implemented this idea in the extensive slum areas of Bangladesh as most of them have illegal electric lines and soon he received the global partnership of Litre of Light, actively working in 12 countries to spread the initiative, including India, the Philippines and Switzerland.