Mobile Financial Services in need

Sound investment stressed to make MFS competitive

Mobile Financial Services (MFS) have already started a while back in Bangladesh and largest operators bKash, with 85% market share and Dutch Bangla Bank Ltd, with 10% have invested huge sums for platform, network and training. Still it is seen that these businesses are not making good enough revenue, operating on loss or marginal profit. With over 2.86 crore mobile banking clients in June 2015, the transactions are 85% of the time being done Over The Counter (OTC). This makes accountability and records very untrustworthy and unmanageable.

A more sustainable country

Dhaka ready to face new challenges

Bangladesh has met many Millennium Development Goals already and are on course to meet more, which are to be set by the current general assembly. The primary target for the country is Eradicating extreme poverty by 2030. Extreme poverty and hunger (currently 24.8%), achieving universal primary education (98.7%), reducing child mortality (46 per thousand), and improving maternal health (170 deaths per 1 lakh births) are set on being improved by the end of this year.

Headlines, Sept 13 - Sept 17

Blog posts from last week are listed here. You can take a quick peek at your desired update from last week.

Sept 13 :  No VAT says Students, VAT legal says government VAT is 7.5% 
Sept 14 :  Female entrepreneurship in Bangladesh Prospects of Bangladeshi Women
Setp 15 :  Staple food highlights Rice production record; market price variations
Sept 16 :  Mascot for Business Japanese mascot for promoting Bangladesh
Sept 17 :  Income Tax Fair National fair, e-TIN and tax deposits

Income Tax Fair

Off to a good start: tax fair pulls in crowds

We finish the week with a short post about Income tax, fitting since it started off with taxes as well, although on the wrong side of the public agenda.

The annual national income tax fair is being held in Officer’s club in Bailey road, Dhaka and also at Agrabad in Chittagong, aiming for rasiing awareness and motivating people for paying tax and widening the tax net. Of 16 crore people, only 17 lakh Tax identification Number (TIN) is present, from which even only 12 lakh filed tax returns last year. This was admittedly short of the goals of bringing 50% of public revenues through income tax by 2022.

Mascot for Business

Bantora Kun launched in capital to bolster Japan-Bangla trade, cultural ties

A different kind of positive step has been taken by Japan to brighten the image of Bangladesh in Japanese people’s perceptions. A bright yellow Royal Bengal Tiger mascot has been launched by the Japanese business community, to promote Bangladesh and trade relationship with Japan. Naming the mascot with their own style of language, but with some Bangladeshi touch, it is called “Bantora”: ‘Ban’ referring to us and ‘tora’ meaning tiger.

Staple food highlights

Rice output hits record, farmers not so happy

Cropping 1.91 crore tones of borro rice in last season’s production, farmers helped Bangladesh attain highest yield and self-sufficiency in staple food. Total rice output was 3.47 crore tones in fiscal 2014-15. Farmers however, were not satisfied, since market glut from India increased supply and decreased prices, below production costs. Rice import rose almost 4 times last year, which led the government to put a 10 pc duty on rice. However, Indians decreased their own prices. Rice prices although fell, but are affected now due to recent flooding.

Female entrepreneurship in Bangladesh

Female labour force could drive economy further: WB

If Bangladesh could boost its female participation from the current to 34% to 82%, then it is possible to achieve 1.8% point annual GDP growth, the World Bank believes for Bangladesh. In it’s two yearly report on Women, Business and Law, it disseminates acknowledgement of women’s economic environment, in 173 countries, recently expanding from 5, to 8 countries in South Asia.

With seven indicators: accessing institutions, using property, getting a job, providing incentives to work, building credit, going to court and protecting women from violence, previously it found 90% of the economies consisted of at least one law unfavorable to women. It said that Bangladesh and a few neighbors have handicapped inheritance for

No VAT says Students, VAT legal says government

The VAT confusion

Protests sprang across the entire Dhaka city from on Thursday in an absolutely organized student movement, to get vocal about the announcement of 7.5% VAT on education by the government. Only since the huge Shahabgh movement, was such a scale of protest seen in the capital.

Finance minister AMA Muhith urged that this decision will not be overturned reasoning that the system had already been in place, which the university authorities have already agreed to. He rashly commented denouncing the movement of the “most educated sections..due to their lack of knowledge” for which he later apologized. He also stated that the students will not have to bear the burden, the issue being reconsidered in the coming days.

The NBR stated that this tax is on the private universities, not on the students, but government authorities could not clarify whether this had been extracted in this form in the past. Students, as well as teachers were not convinced, arguing strongly that since

Headlines, Sept 6 - Sept 10

Last weeks post from the CES blog are listed here. You can take a quick look at your desired update from last week.

Sept 6 :    Gas production deals - Russian gas exploration deal with Bangladesh

Sept 7 :    RMG comebacks and challenges - RMG challenges, remediation prospects
Sept 8 :    New civil pay scales - Revised pay scales for civil employees, almost double
Sept 9 :    Export health of Bangladesh - Potential export growth to Japan and SAARC
Sept 10 :  Telecom talks all around - Merger talks between Robi and Airtel

Telecom talks all around

Airtel and Robi begin merger talks

It is unavoidable that the greatest highlight today would be the proposed merger of Robi with Airtel. The fourth largest telecom operator, Bharti Airtel, if merged with the third largest, Malaysia based Robi Axiata Ltd , would become the second largest in the country. Airtel, announcing earlier they will retract all operations from Bangladesh, may eventually see a different future.

Export health of Bangladesh

Exports to Japan will hit $2b by 2018: Tofail

Today we look at export situation of Bangladesh with a few partner countries

Doubling exports to Japan in the last five years, it could be crossing US$2 bn in 3 years ahead. Japan, opting for independence from Chinese trade, have been looking to countries such as Bangladesh to supply their domestic retailers for whom they allow duty-free access. Export consists of products of apparel, shrimp, leather and jute. Naturally, RMG has highest share (71.3%) and rising. In FY 2014-15, exports to Japan rose 6% to US$915.2 m, while imports stood at US$1.51 bn. Relations can be more in

New civil pay scales

Bangladesh gives final nod to new pay scale 

New pay scales of civil servants have been announced earlier and the basic salary increment has been put into place from July this year. It covers civil servants as well as armed forces members. Although effective from July, the new scaled salaries would be available to the public passing a circular, only as early as November.

RMG comebacks and challenges

RMG export shines in volume, pales in value

Low price offers from foreign buyers, devaluation of the Euro and rise in production costs make our RMG exports bleak, compared to the 58.17% rise from the last fiscal year of 2014-15. The volume posted was at 1.57 bn units exported earning a total of US $25.49 bn, a 4% rise. Knitwear and woven products scaled up 3.13% and 5% respectively. Improvement in productivity and technology is required to meet the devaluation in the EU and possible monopsony of buyers worldwide.

Headlines, Aug 30 - Sept 30

These are the posts of our CES blog from last week:

Sept 3 :    Port prospects - of land and sea ports of Bangladesh
Sept 2 :    Internet users milestone - record internet subscribers in the country
Sept 1  :   Energy for revenue - revenue generation, price hikes of gas and electricity
Aug 31 :   Crops under water. - crops and areas affected by flooding
Aug 30 :   Onion tensions - onion prices fluctuate wildly

Gas production deals

Gazprom gets lucrative trio of deals without tender

Last week, we saw unprecedented rise of the electricity and particularly, natural gas.

This week’s news comes as with some development on that front: Russian state-run gas exploration company Gazprom, have signed a deal with three state-owned gas production companies, to plan the drilling of five wells, without a production sharing contract (PSC). This was a targeted bid to raise national output by 150 million cubic feet per day. Previously, deals with the same company failed to extract a planned 300 million cubic ft per day, instead getting only 140 million cubic ft.

Port prospects

Shahjahan: Payra and Mongla Ports to be launched soon

Two other sea ports apart from the Chittagong port are being planned to be in operation soon. Mongla port in Khulna and Payra port in Patuakhali, are tobeing worked on for launch, which would shift business dependency on the current operating port at Chittagong. For the Payra port, it is reported that 20 countries are expressing their interest for investment.

For the Chittagong port, shipping minister Shahajahan Khan said a sluice gate will be constructed on “Mohesh Khal” with a pump house to combat the waterlogging in the capital city.

In terms of land ports, two custom stations in Bibir Bazar and Akahaura in the Comilla

Internet users milestone

Internet subscribers cross 5cr landmark

Amongst our country’s major flaws, trials and tribulations, the telecom industry passed a major milestone in July this year. From the BTRC website, it was informed that the country crossed over to 5.07 crore internet subscribers in July. In that month, fixed-line internet subscribers showed 12.93 lakh, mobile phone subscribers at 12.87 crore and Wimax users on a slow decline registering 1.74 lakh.

Grameenophone is the market leader in terms of internet communications, following Robi, Airtel and Teletalk, whereas oldest operator Citycell makes the bottom of the list.

Energy for revenue

Gas, power gets pricier

Gas tariff hike to generate Tk 34.05b annually

To ensure energy security, the recent power and gas price hike by the government has received criticism from stakeholders, the opposition as well as some of the ruling party itself.

Gas price has been increased by 26.29%, which brings a double burner stove use to Tk 650 a month. The decision was to generate revenue from natural gas, amounting to Tk 34.05 bn a year, with aims at full utilization and “not to increase profitability” by the energy regulator. The purpose of the rise would be ensure the allocate more to the Gas-development fund (GDF), which would be used to import pricy re-gasified LNG by 2017 to meet upping demand. The fund provides infrastructural backing for oil and gas exploration.