Weekly News Clippings (February 20, 2014)

Forex reserves surge past $19b (The Daily Star, February 20, 2014)
Foreign currency reserves continued its unprecedented growth to reach $19.04 billion yesterday on the back of a rise in remittances and exports and a fall in imports. This was the first time in the history that the reserves have surged past the $19 billion mark, which placed Bangladesh second only to India in the subcontinent. Bangladesh Bank Governor Atiur Rahman attributed the strong reserves to a stable exchange rate.


RMG manufacturers eye big spot orders from US expo (Financial Express, February 19, 2014)
Bangladeshi manufacturers of readymade garments (RMG) are participating in a three-day apparel expo in the US resort city of Las Vegas in Nevada, showcasing their latest garment products to get an extra edge in North American market. The Men's Apparel Guild in California, known as MAGIC International, a leading event manager for apparels industry, is organizing the three-day expo that began on Tuesday.  A major objective of the Bangladeshi participants is to get spot orders from the US buyers.

Foreign funding for NGOs remains robust (Dhaka Tribune, February 19, 2014)
Foreign funding for non-governmental organisations has remained unchanged despite concerns from donors and development partners alike over the political turmoil centering January 5 national elections. Funding through the NGO Affairs Bureau retained its growth of 4.83% in the first half of the current fiscal compared to 12 months of last fiscal year. In the previous year, the NGOs could attract pledges of $639.83m against 1,084 approved projects. Most of this amount was released in the current fiscal which is 31.89% less than the previous fiscal.

Retailers launch Bangladesh factory inspection (Channel News Asia, February 18, 2014)
Safety experts hired by Western retailers such as H&M and Benetton will begin a mass inspection Wednesday of clothing factories in Bangladesh, nearly a year after 1,135 garment workers died in a building collapse. Dozens of fire officers and structural engineers will begin inspecting more than 1,500 plants and then recommend safety improvements in an exercise that is expected to last until September. Bangladesh is the world's second biggest clothing manufacturer and the sector is the mainstay of the impoverished South Asian nation's economy.

Bangladesh out of FATF grey list (The Daily Star, February 17, 2014)
Bangladesh has come out of the Financial Action Task Force's (FATF) grey list, meaning there would be a great reduction in the cost and time of financial transactions with the rest of the world which would benefit businessmen in the country.  The FATF plenary meeting held in French capital Paris on February 13 gave unanimous recognition to Bangladesh’s Action for preventing Money Laundering and Terror Financing as reaching international standards. In 2008, FATF made first mutual evaluation of Bangladesh and in the rating Bangladesh’s position was in negative category. In October 2010, the FATF gave Bangladesh time-bound 28 action items needed to bring its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing measures to international standards.

Software, IT vendors aim for $1b exports(The Daily Star, February 17, 2014)
Software and IT service providers have made an ambitious plan to earn $1 billion from exports—10 times higher than the current level—and create 1 million professionals in five years. In addition, Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) aims to make the internet available to one crore new users a year and to contribute 1 percent to gross domestic product from the software and IT sector by 2018 under the One Bangladesh campaign.

Bangladesh awards wheat tender to Glencore at $303/T (Reuters, February 17, 2014)
Trading firm Glencore has won a tender to supply 50,000 tonnes of wheat to Bangladesh after submitting the lowest offer at $303 a tonne. This was the lowest price it has paid in tenders for wheat in the current financial year that began in July 2013. The imports are part of a plan by the Directorate General of Food, the state grains buyer, to ship in 850,000 tonnes of wheat in the year to June 2014.

7 kids die in Jessore bus plunge (The Daily Star, February 15, 2014)
A bus carrying 75 schoolchildren on a study trip skidded off a road and into a canal in southwestern Bangladesh on Saturday, killing at least seven children and injuring dozens more, a police chief said.
The seven children were between the ages of 6 and 12, and they were declared dead on the scene.

Bangladesh trade deficit shrinks (Business Standard, February, 16, 2014)
Trade deficit during the first six months of the 2013-2014 fiscal contracted by 58.29 percent to about $1.53 billion year-on-year. According to the central bank data, the country's import payment was $16.044 billion, down 0.11 percent, during the July-December period of the current fiscal (July 2013-June 2014) while earnings from exports stood at $14.511 billion, up 17.15 percent, during the same period.

Bangladesh Jan exports rise 7.8 pct on garment sales(Reuters, February 16, 2014)
Bangladesh's exports rose 7.8 percent in January from a year earlier to $2.75 billion, boosted by clothing sales, the Export Promotion Bureau said. Bangladesh's $22 billion garment industry had seen orders cut nearly in half in the three months to December as political unrest in the months leading up to a Jan. 5 election hit the country.