The United Nations (UN) yesterday said that the damage from Cyclone Sidr is worse than initial estimates. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, in a press release yesterday, said, “As more information becomes available, an even grimmer reality is being revealed.”

Bangladesh High Commissioner Designate to Pakistan Mrs.Yasmeen Murshed made a courtesy call on the ICC Bangladesh President Mr.Mahbubur Rahman at ICCB National Secretariat on December 3. They exchanged views on promotion of trade and investment between the countries. ICCB Executive Board member, namely, Mr. A.S.M Quasem, Chairman, Newage Garments Limited; Mr. Masih Ul Karim, Managing Director, Berger Paints Bangladesh Limited; Mr.A.K.M Rafiqul Islam, FCA, Chairman, Bangladesh Insurance Association (BIA) & Managing Director of Pragoti Life Insurance and ICCB Secretary Mr.Ataur Rahman were also present. Mention may be made that Mrs. Murshed was the Chairman of Scolastica, which is a member of ICC Bangladesh.

The Emirates Trading Agency, a Dubai-based organisation, is interested to import manpower, including civil and electrical engineers, designers, cleaners, electricians and housemaids, from Bangladesh. The organisation also wants to take 50 orphans from Bangladesh at their own cost and provide them with suitable jobs in the Middle East countries.

The central bank has projected that inflation rate will rise by 1.3 percentage point in the current fiscal year compared to that of last year due to the rise in prices of food and non-food items in the global market. However, the central bank predicts that the GDP growth rate will stay over 6.0 percent, though many quarters have anticipated it would be lower than that.

Common people’s involvement in strategies is much needed to cut poverty in South Asia, economists told an international conference yesterday, adding that only strengthening institutions will not help much. Chairman of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) Rehman Sobhan said promotion of micro enterprises, broadening of safety nets and creating employment opportunities are poverty alleviation measures, but not the ways of poverty eradication.

The Bangladesh Bank (BB) has predicted that the country’s growth momentum will generally be sustained during the current fiscal (FY08) notwithstanding the fact that there will be a negative sign in growth of agriculture, industry and services sectors.

Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed yesterday asked international donors to pump in an estimated $1 billion to assist in a massive long-term plan to protect the coastal areas from recurring natural disasters and climate changes, or risk undermining Bangladesh’s development.

Two Norwegian designers have launched a new range of exclusive porcelain in Europe, manufacturing and decorating the plates, vases and bowls in Bangladesh. The items produced at the Shinepukur Ceramics factory in Gazipur are on sale in Oslo, London and other European capitals, and have already featured in several European design magazines.

Hossain Khaled has been reelected president of Dhaka Chamber of Commerce & Industry (DCCI) for the year 2008.

The Bangladeshi knitwear manufacturers are developing their capacities to produce non-cotton and high value active wear, said exporters at the two-day Bangladesh Knit Exposition-2007 that began at the Sheraton Hotel in the city on Sunday.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said yesterday it would likely revise lower its 2008 estimate of world economic growth due to financial market turmoil and surging oil prices. “Global growth in 2008 will likely be lower than we anticipated in the World Economic Outlook,” IMF spokesman Masood Ahmed said at a news conference.

The World Bank is in talks with the government on improvement of regulations governing Bangladesh’s nascent capital market. “The World Bank has started preliminary talks with us regarding a future project designed to develop Bangladesh’s bond market, still in its infancy,” a senior finance ministry official said.

UAE-based RAK Airways started operations in Bangladesh on Thursday hoping to cash in on the increased flow of Bangladeshi workers to the Middle East. “Traffic from Bangladesh has increased in recent days mainly due to increased flow of Bangladeshi workers to the Middle East,” said SAK Ekramuzzaman, chief executive of Mohammed Aviation, the general sales agent of RAK Airways in Bangladesh.

About 0.8 million metric tons of Aman crops worth around Tk 20,000 million have been damaged in Cyclone Sidr that ripped through the southwestern districts last month, shows the agriculture ministry’s final damage assessment. The report unveiled at a press conference yesterday reads, “The overall shortfall in Aman production for the current fiscal year stands at 1.4 million metric tons as another 0.6 million metric tons of the crop have already been damaged in floods.”

The country’s overall balance of payments (BoP) continued to maintain a surplus position despite a deficit in the current account balance during the first two months of the current fiscal, official sources said. The overall balance showed a surplus of $130 million (13 crore) during July-August, 2007 against the surplus of $107 million of the corresponding period of last year mainly due to a surplus in the financial account of $170 million, the Bangladesh Bank (BB) said in its Major Economic Indicators: Monthly Update-November 2007.

India yesterday lifted its ban on rice exports to the tune of 0.5 million tonnes to help Bangladesh deal with its food shortages and also proposed to pay for the full rebuilding of 10 villages badly affected by Sidr. Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee made the announcement during his daylong visit to Bangladesh yesterday, which follows discussions with Foreign Adviser Iftekhar A Chowdhury on the sidelines of the Commonwealth leaders summit in Uganda recently.

The Third Knit Exposition-2007, an annual event organised for displaying the country’s knit products and their backward linkages, kicks off today (Sunday) in the city. Chief Adviser of the caretaker government Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed is scheduled to inaugurate the three-day long fair at Dhaka Sheraton Hotel today (Sunday).

Bangladesh’s Permanent Representative to the World Trade Organisation in Geneva Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya has sought free decision for LDCs’ market access along with simple and transparent rules of origin. The Dhaka’s envoy was addressing an informal meeting of the Trade Negotiation Committee (TNC) held in Geneva on Thursday.

Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed is likely to propose a number of medium- and long-term relief and rehabilitation programmes for Sidr-affected areas when he meets donors tomorrow as part of a broad plan to rebuild a more durable region for future disasters. The proposals will include economic rehabilitation, infrastructure development, disaster preparedness programmes and climate adaptation programmes to strengthen the region’s defence against future natural disasters, a high-level government official told The Daily Star.

The country’s leading exporters and businesses said Bangladesh products should be granted duty free access to the US market in consideration of the damaged caused to the former’s economy by natural calamities such as floods and cyclone recently.