NBR slaps tax on farmland transfer (The Daily Star, July 3, 2014)
The National Board of Revenue has for the first time brought the transfer of agricultural land under its tax net in an attempt to boost receipts and curb tax-dodging. The measure comes amid allegations that non-farm land outside the municipality areas are handed over in the name of agricultural land to evade tax. From now onwards, sellers of farmland in rural and suburban areas will have to deposit one percent of the deed value of the property to the state coffers as tax.
The best will last (The Daily Star, July 3, 2014)
After three months of grueling training and business building, top 15 startups are now fighting for the right to go to the next stage of the 2014 Bangladesh StartUp Cup 2014. Five seasoned mentors, five judges and five guest investors from the US are all geared up for the second round of the Cup that began in April earlier this year. Bangladesh StartUp Cup 2014 is a 7 month long contest which helps startup entrepreneurs to define their product or service, build a business around it and sell it in the market.
Nepal, Bangladesh beat India in mother and child care (Hindustan Times, July 3, 2014)
Ten countries, including Nepal and Bangladesh in South Asia, have dramatically reduced mother and child deaths within two decades despite social and political challenges. Action in just these 10 "fast-track" countries - Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, Lao PDR, Nepal, Peru, Rwanda and Vietnam – prevented 2.4 million child deaths and over 70,000 fewer maternal deaths between 1990 and 2013. Though mix of strategies and investments used to reduce mother and child deaths differed to meet local context and priorities across the 10 countries, some common approaches shared by all fast-track countries included high-impact health interventions such as quality care at birth, immunisation and family planning, prioritising education, women’s political and economic participation and control of corruption. In Bangladesh, for example, mobile technology was used to digitalise birth registration, taking it up from 10% in 2006 to over 50% in 2013.
Germany to push for economic reforms in G7 (Dhaka Tribune, July 2, 2014)
Germany wants to promote structural economic, financial market and tax reform when it takes over the presidency of the G7 club of rich nations next week. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and central bank Chief Jens Weidmann stressed the need for “sound public finances and energetic structural reforms ... to achieve sustainable growth in the G7 countries and the global economy”. Amid the eurozone crisis, Schaeuble has been a champion of tough austerity and fiscal discipline as opposed to the stimulus spending advocated by crisis-hit countries in the EU.
$92m World Bank project helps improve drainage, minimise urban flooding (The Financial Express, July 2, 2014)
The Dhaka Water Supply and Sanitation Project (DWSSP), supported by the World Bank, is helping the Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (DWASA) to improve rainwater drainage in select catchments in Dhaka and strengthen its planning capacity. The project has initiated measures to install selected storm water pumping stations and rehabilitate selected canals to help improve drainage and minimize urban flooding. The estimated total cost of the project is US$ 92.7 million. The World Bank is providing US$ 76.0 million, while the government is financing the remaining costs
Economists: Big hole in income tax system (Dhaka Tribune, July 2, 2014)
In Bangladesh, the top 10 percent of the population owns 35 percent of the national income while personal income taxes are a meager 1.5 percent of GDP. At a seminar on Implementation Challenges of the 2014-15 Budget, jointly organised by the Policy Research Institute (PRI) and DFID, World Bank lead economist Zahid Hussain said the country might achieve 6.5 percent economic growth in the ongoing fiscal year, not the 7.3 percent the government is aiming at, and that too will depend on the revival of the stagnating private investment.
Solar home systems in Bangladesh see fastest growth (The Daily Star, July 1, 2014)
The programme for installing solar home systems in Bangladesh has the fastest penetration rate in the world, as the country installs more than 70,000 such units every month. The World Bank has agreed to lend the Bangladesh government a $78.4 million additional financing to further scale up support for the programme. The country has installed more than 3.1 million solar home systems till May this year with support from the WB and other development partners. The total installed capacity of these solar home systems is around 140MW, sufficient to provide clean electricity to 14 million rural people. The project will help install an additional 480,000 solar home systems that have emerged as a viable electrification option for areas without grid access to electricity.
Migrant workers hit by travel tax hike(The Daily Star, July 1, 2014)
The government has raised the travel tax in the upcoming fiscal year, a move that is set to put pressure on the financially-challenged migrant workers, who form the majority of outbound travellers from Bangladesh. From July 1, travel tax for the migrant workers' popular destinations such as Middle East, Malaysia and Singapore, along with a host of other countries, will be Tk 3,000, an increase of 20 percent. The hike comes at a time when the cost of migration is on the rise and the outflow of migrants for overseas jobs is on the decline.
Nike's marketing costs soar on World Cup(The Daily Star, June 30, 2014)
Heavy spending on marketing weighed on Nike's performance in its fourth quarter which ended 31 May. Spending on marketing soared by 36 percent as Nike boosted promotion ahead of the 2014 FIFA World Cup curbing profits which rose 1 percent to $698m, compared to the same quarter in 2013. For the first time Nike is sponsoring more national teams in the World Cup than rival Adidas. The German firm has a sponsorship deal with Luis Suarez who has been suspended from all football-related activity for four months for biting Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini.
Bangladesh can be world's largest food exporter (The Financial Express, June 30, 2014)
The Dutch Ambassador in Dhaka, Garben de Jong said that Bangladesh could be the world's largest agricultural foods exporting country. "Currently Netherlands is world's second-largest agricultural goods exporter despite being five times smaller than Bangladesh in size….. Why not Bangladesh?”, he asked while visiting a project by Salidaridad, a foreign aid-provider-turned-trade facilitator. Salidaridad is facilitating the country's largest efficient supply chain under Sustainable Agriculture, Food Security and Linkages (SaFaL) programme. It engages all actors in the chain in innovative market solutions that maximizes benefits for all.
ADB gives loan for Bangladesh project to improve climate resilience (Globalpost, June 29, 2014)
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Bangladeshi government Sunday signed agreements for 82 million U.S. dollars in loans and 12 million U.S. dollars in grants to protect the country's coastal towns from the ravages of natural disasters and climate change. According to the ADB, the Coastal Towns Environmental Infrastructure Project will help eight vulnerable secondary coastal towns in southern Bangladesh build up their climate resilience and disaster preparedness. Coastal areas of the country, according to the ADB, with a population of over 38 million, are heavily exposed to cyclones, storm surges, and sea level rises, which are expected to become more frequent and extreme with the onset of climate change.
Productive use of remittance (The Financial Express, June 29, 2014)
Remittance earning, along with the receipts that come from the apparel items, forms the backbone of the economy. A recent survey conducted by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), the state statistical organisation, has found out that the major portion of the remittance income is spent on consumption and acquisition of land and real estate. The survey that covered 9961 remittance-earning households across the country between January, 2013 and June, 2014 has found that only 25 per cent of such households invest funds in productive activities. It has also revealed that the bulk of the remittance money is spent on consumption, home-building and purchase of land and flats.
Bangladesh 3rd poorest country in South Asia (Dhaka Tribune, June 27, 2014)
Bangladesh is the third poorest country in South Asia after Afghanistan and India, according to a recent poverty estimation study by Oxford University, UK. The Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) 2014, a tool used by Oxford researchers to measure poverty, placed Afghanistan as the poorest country in South Asia, with 66% of its people being poor, followed by India with 54%, Bangladesh with 51% and Pakistan and Nepal with 44%. Using the MPI tool, the researchers classified the “destitute” as those who experience extreme deprivation such as having lost two children or more, having someone severely malnourished in the households, or having no asset at all.
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