Revised river transit fees

River transit fees to be fixed next month

In the next inter-ministerial meeting, Bangladesh will submit the proposal to India for the river transit fees to a maximum of Tk 382 or US $2.9 per tonne. This had a minimum of Tk 282 per tonne, the structure was drafted in another such meeting last month, while the entire fee structure will be finalized in an upcoming secretarial meeting. 

The structure of the fee will be segregated to three components:

Denim

Bangladesh: a rising star in denim sector

Event organizers are facing good amount of stress-load to find accommodation to house the participants of the denim expo in Dhaka next month. Too many international retailers have been showing interest to showcase their offerings in the 3rd edition of the Denim Expo, due to be held in Bashundhara International Convention City in November. 41 Retailers, designers and fabric makers will all come together to to produce a good show of their products. 27 are from abroad, from countries such as China, India, Pakistan, the US, Turkey, Singapore, Thailand, South Korea, Japan and Germany, most of whom was not aware of Bangladesh's Denim potential some time ago.

Middle and Affluent Class (MAC)

Affluent consumers on the rise: study

Bangladesh has been reported to be ahead of some of its neighbors in generating more middle-income and affluent consumers recently. This is welcomingly sensitive to the prospective consumer product companies. The Boston Consulting Group reported that Bangladesh is adding 2 million people to the Middle and Affluent Class (MAC) every year which can triple from the present number of 12 million to 34 million people in 2025. Consumer product companies thus may home in on the 10.5% annual growth of Bangladeshi MAC, ahead of the growth of Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand. Currently, Bangladesh only has 7% of 160 million people in the MAC, far behind Vietnam and Indonesia, despite having higher growth numbers.

Trudging State Banks

State banks pass hard times as loan growth stalls

After the recent concern over the performance of State owned banks, it seems that this type is still facing similar waves of hurdles. The Advance-to-deposit ratio (ADR), indicating how much loaned out to the amount deposited, is down to below 52% for Agrani, BASIC, Janata, Rupali, BDBL, and Sonali banks. These State owned banks, thus cannot hope to earn as they expected. All of the other banking types have higher ADR. 39 Commercial banks had over 76% ADR, 9 foreign banks had close to 60% and Islami banks had over 80% as of August 87.

Headlines Oct 18 - Oct 21

Last week, the blog tried to present to you the current news about niche sectors of the economy, covered in the media. The status and business environment of particular sectors were the highlight and can be found below.

Oct 18  :  Tourism in Durga Puja Tourism hopeful about revival in Durga Puja
Oct 19  :  Cement makers regroup  Big upcoming projects inspire cement industry
Oct 20  :  Leather and Jute Strength of the leather sector; India, reconsider Jute
Oct 21  :  Cold Storage and Cake retail Cold storage chain investment; Cake industry
 

Cold Storage and Cake retail

Processed food makers investing more in cold chain networks

Golden Harvest Agro Industries, is setting up cold chain networks worth US $50 million in the country, with the help of USAID. With this huge investment plan, local companies like Pran, Brac, Aftab, Kazi Farms, Bengal meat and others are following suit. 

Few industries before have invested in cold chain network. Refrigerators, refrigerated vehicles, chilling centers and storage facilities are needed for the investment-intensive cold chain development, all of which Bangladesh imports. Absence of storage facilities waste as much as 30% of total produce in Bangladesh.

Leather and Jute

Leather sector's exports cross $1b for second year

Leather sector seems to be the only consistent sector in the economy among all the political and economic issues. Becoming the second largest sector in the economy, it amounted to US $1.13bn in 2014-15 similar to US $1.12bn in 2013-14. Consistency however, was still not enough to align perfectly with economic targets $1.4bn this fiscal year. Next fiscal of 2015-16, targets have been set at $1.21bn.

Bangladeshi leather exports have been doing well with India, Nepal, Australia and particularly Japan, for its duty-free policies. Exporters have considered our economy to maintain closer relations with Japan, so that this advantage remains despite many Asian countries signing free trade deals with them. Bangladesh exports 30% of leather produced to Japan. Of the total global leather exports, Bangladesh contributes 0.5%, worth of $215bn.