EU warns Bangladesh of compliance (Dhaka Tribune, December 5, 2013)
Serious trade actions will be taken if labour rights and workplace safety are not improved substantially warned Karel De Gucht, European trade commissioner. “Everything should be put in place for continuation of duty-free facility to the EU. If nothing substantial is achieved, Bangladesh will have serious problems with the EU,” he said, while indicating that the implications will be more serious than the US’s suspension of generalised system of preferences (GSP) scheme. At present, Bangladesh is among the least-developed nations that enjoys duty-free and quota-free access to the European Union under the “Everything but Arms” scheme.
BD makes 'insignificant' progress in graft index (The Financial Express, December 4, 2013)
Bangladesh has been ranked 16th from the bottom in the global corruption perceptions index, taking three steps forward from its last year's position. However, according to Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) the improvement is insignificant as the large scale corruption issues like the Padma Bridge, railway scandal, Hall-Mark, Destiny and the Rana Plaza collapse have overshadowed Bangladesh's profile in the index. Afghanistan is the only country that stood below Bangladesh in the South Asian region while Pakistan, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka and Bhutan managed to score 28, 31, 36, 37 and 63 respectively.
bKash eyes to be the largest m-banking service provider co in the world(The Financial Express, December 4, 2013)
bKash Limited is looking to become the largest mobile banking service provider company in the world within the next few years said Rumee Ali, chairman of bKash. Ali expects to achieve nearly 15 million bKash accounts at the end of 2014 by exploiting the huge business-expansion opportunity in Bangladesh having over 110 million cell phone users, and 60 per cent unbanked people out of 160 million population. With 76,000 agents and 180 distributors, bKash accounts now stand around 8 million across the country.
Coca-Cola offers Tabani $16m to end bottling deal (The Daily Star, December 3, 2013)
Coca-Cola has agreed to pay $16 million to Tabani Beverage to end a decade-old bottling agreement with the state-run company. Coca-Cola made the offer after a government panel suggested closing the deal upon the payment of the sum which Tabani will use to clear its liabilities. The liberation war affairs ministry, the owner of Tabani, last week sent a proposal to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs in this regard. Finance Minister AMA Muhith has also given his consent to the move, which will clear ways for the soft drink maker to invest $50 million to set up a manufacturing plant in Bangladesh, according to the proposal. Coca-Cola Far East Ltd markets Coke products in Dhaka and Rajshahi by bottling through Pran, while Abdul Monem Ltd, another bottler of Coca-Cola, distributes the products in other parts of the country.
SR Asia conference seeks steps to deal with hazardous sectors (Financial Express, December 2, 2013)
The SR Asia 2nd International Conference on "Responsible Business Conduct to Safeguard the People's Issues and Environment by Managing Hazardous Waste" was held in the city on November 29 and 30. This year Bangladesh hosted the 2013 International Conference, which was jointly organised by the CIRDAP and the Bangladesh Bank Training Academy. Other partners include GIZ, Swisscontact, APO, IPLA, E&Y, Islami Bank Bangladesh Ltd. and a few others, according to a press statement by the SR Asia. The aims and objectives of the conference is how waste is being handled in the developing countries.
Bangladesh remittances dip for fourth month in a row (Reuters, December 2, 2013)
Money sent home by Bangladeshis working overseas has dropped nearly 5 percent slipping for the fourth straight month. Millions of expatriate Bangladeshis remitted $5.55 billion from July to November, the first five months of the current financial year, down 9 percent from the same period in the previous year. Good inflow of remittances in recent years have helped build foreign exchange reserves to more than $17 billion. Remittances from about 9 million citizens abroad are critical for the impoverished nation and are a key source of foreign exchange alongside garments, which account for 80 percent of total export earnings of around $27 billion a year. Economic growth is expected to slow down as political uncertainty and turmoil ahead of elections set for Jan. 5 take their toll.
Will Bangladesh Ever Have a Future? (Bloomberg, December 2, 2013)
Pankaj Mishra, the author of "Temptations of the West: How to be Modern in India, Pakistan, Tibet and Beyond," and a contributor to the New York Review of Books, the New Yorker, the Guardian and the London Review of Books delves into the past and present of the world’s seventh-most-populous country. Mishra, also a regular commentator on the BBC, weighs on the pros and cons and envisages how the future of Bangladesh “dominated by the fractiousness of the country’s main leaders” will be despite “the slavery-like conditions of the country’s garment industry”.
Bangladesh’s garment factories still aren’t safe (Business Mirror, December 1, 2013)
John A. Quelch, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School goes out on a limb to voice his opinion in contrary to the popular perception that Western governments and international organizations can exert little influence on the Bangladeshi government or companies. According to Quelch, only “two forces can improve workplace conditions: pressure by consumers of Bangladesh-made garments and the responsibility that companies placing orders on Bangladeshi factories may feel because of the efforts of consumers and employees.”
Bangladesh factory burned down by angry workers (CBC News, November 29, 2013)
A huge fire on Friday destroyed a Bangladesh garment factory supplying key Western brands such as WalMart, Gap Inc etc, in a blaze touched off by workers angered over rumours of a colleague's death in police firing. Garments are a vital sector for the South Asian nation, whose low wages and duty-free access to Western markets have helped make it the world's second-largest apparel exporter after China. There were no initial reports of casualties in Friday's fire, which gutted a ten-storey building at Gazipur, 40 km from the capital, Dhaka. As many as 18,000 people worked at the factory but they had left the building by 11 p.m., shortly before the fire started. The factory was among the ten biggest in the country.
Bangladesh concludes fuel term deals at mostly unchanged premiums (Reuters, November 28, 2013)
State-owned Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) has concluded first-half 2014 term negotiations with nine companies for oil products at mostly unchanged current premiums. Premiums will be unchanged for all oil products except fuel oil. BPC finalised its gasoil contract for the first half of 2014 at a premium of $4.80 per barrel over Middle East quotes, while the term contract for jet fuel has been fixed at a premium of $5.80 per barrel, remaining unchanged from July-December deals. Suppliers for Bangladesh's middle distillates contracts are Kuwait Petroleum Corp (KPC), Malaysia's Petronas, Egypt's Middle East Oil Refinery, Emirates National Oil Company (ENOC), Philippines National Oil Company among others.
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