Overall imports rise by 7pc in July-August (The Financial Express, October 15, 2013)
The country's overall imports rose by nearly seven per cent in the first two months of the current fiscal year (FY), 2013-14, following a 96.81 per cent increase in the import of food. According to Bangladesh Bank officials, this a bad sign for the economy, as higher import of food grains will increase inflation. Both public and private sectors are now importing rice and wheat, mainly from India and Thailand, to meet the growing demand in the local market.
Cheating galore in real estate sector (The Financial Express, October 15, 2013)
Fraudulence in the real estate sector has increased alarmingly as over a hundred victims lodged complaints with the association of the realtors and different police stations in the last couple of months. According to the Real Estate and Housing Association of Bangladesh (Rehab), the association is now dealing with about 120 such complaints. Apart from being swindled by “ghost realtors” who lure in customers by publishing lucrative advertisements, many people are not getting their plots though they had paid the full price and signed the deeds with respective companies.
Tazreen owner freed after 17hrs (The Daily Star, October 14, 2013)
Garment workers of Tuba Group drew their Eid bonus this year after holding their employer, Delwar Hossain, hostage for over 17 hours. They released Delwar around 2:30am from his office at North Badda’s Hossain Market in the presence of policemen. Delwar, also owner of Tazreen Fashions Ltd at Ashulia, where 112 workers were killed in a deadly fire last November, has three garment units in Hossain Market. He was held by workers on the third floor and was freed only after the management paid bonuses to the workers.
World Bank to give funds for transportation and innovative programmes (Dhaka Tribune, October 13, 2013)
The World Bank would provide funds for Bangladesh’s new transportation development programmes such as the bus rapid transportation project and excess from its innovative fund-raising, said Bangladesh Finance Minister AMA Muhith. Bangladesh would also get the excess from the World Bank’s innovative fund-raising for the education sector as the country’s primary education enrolment had reached 1.5m making Bangladesh the leader in the field.
Bangladesh’s tanneries make the sweatshops look good (Toronto Star, October 12, 2013)
Though Bangladesh’s garment industry has come under a microscope since the Rana Plaza Collapse, Hazaribagh, the toxic heart of the country’s multimillion-dollar leather industry in which about 15,000 people work, has quietly carried on as it has for decades. It may be less notorious but it is no less appalling. The working conditions are brutal, illness is rampant and degradation of the environment is brazen. At almost $1 billion a year in sales, the leather industry is one of Bangladesh’s most profitable sectors. Last year, it earned $451 million by exporting leather and leather products between July and December, an increase of about 20 per cent from the same period in 2011.
Bangladesh among top 5 least costly corridors of remittance (Dhaka Tribune, October 11, 2013)
Bangladesh is the 7h largest remittance receiving country in the world which has been growing at double digits since 1980s. Remittances now stand at over USD$16bn accounting for about 11% of GDP, said Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr Atiur Rahman while delivering a speech at the Boston University Center for Finance, Law & Policy, USA. According to Rahman, mobile banking (smart cards), drawing arrangements, exchange houses, MFIs, Post Offices and other uses of ICT is playing important role in collecting and distributing the remittances at low cost.
Bangladesh still a top choice for garment buyers (The Daily Star, October 11, 2013)
Despite frequent factory disasters, international garment retailers choose to source their goods from Bangladesh, mainly due to the competitive prices the country offers. Participants in a textile show said that that the country now manufactures diversified and value-added products, yet another reason for the retailers’ preference for Bangladesh. Value-added and high-end products account for almost 30 percent of Bangladesh’s total apparel exports. Bangladesh exported garment items worth $21.51 billion in fiscal 2012-13 registering a 12.70 percent growth compared to the previous year. China’s apparel exports stood at $159.9 billion in 2012.
(No newspaper was published on the 16, 17 and the 18th due to Eid-ul-Azha holiday)
No comments:
Post a Comment