The New Mooring Container Terminal (NCT), country’s largest and one of the leading terminals in South Asia will go public through offloading its 49 per cent shares worth around Tk 4.0 billion. The decision was finalised on July 9 at a meeting held at Chittagong Port. The NCT will go into operation in December this year.

Boosted by a surge in remittances, the balance of payments (BoP) surplus reached US$909 million in the first ten months of the last fiscal (2006-07), despite a fall in foreign direct investment and foreign aid. The overall balance was only $43 million surplus during the same period of FY ‘06.

The country’s export earnings in July–May of the last fiscal year amounted to $10.96 billion, showing a decelerated growth rate of 16.4 %. The average prices of primary products increased by less then 4 % and manufactured products declined by more than 1 %, meaning that real earnings from exports were on the decline as manufactured products contribute nearly 80 % to exports.

A 14-member delegation of International Chamber of Commerce (ICC)-Bangladesh led by its President Mahbubur Rahman left Dhaka for Istanbul to attend the 5th World Chambers Congress (WCC) of World Chambers Federation (WCF), an affiliate of ICC Paris.

Mobile telephone density in Bangladesh has increased by 1,585 per cent in five years -between January 2002 and January 2007, according to an official document. Mobile telephone density in the country, merely one per cent in January 2002 touched 16.85 per cent in January 2007, according to the Bangladesh Economic Review 2007 published recently by the government.

Private sector investment declined significantly in the outgoing fiscal year, according to the Bangladesh Economic Review for 2007. Registration of private sector investment projects at the Board of Investment reduced by 24 per cent, from the previous fiscal year, 2006-07. ‘The drop was mainly due to major reductions in foreign and joint venture investments, local investments however have increased by 37.7 per cent,’ according to the Review, a government document published annually.

The rate of LC openings in the first 11 months of the outgoing fiscal year increased 14.38 percent over the corresponding period of last year. According to Bangladesh Bank’s figures, last year LC opened worth US$ 13958.17 million for the 11 months while the amount is US$ 159565.26 million this fiscal.

The council of advisers at a special meeting on June 27 approved the national budget for 2007-08 fiscal year with amendments to the duty and tax measures proposed earlier. Chaired by Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed, the meeting thoroughly discussed the budgetary measures, according to CA’s Press Secretary Syed Fahim Munaim. “It’s a good budget. But its success depends on proper and timely implementation,” the chief adviser was quoted to have told the meeting.

The government is mulling over a policy to engage the private sector in the development of special economic zones. Sources at the Ministry of Industries told that the government has recently abandoned its plan to set up four SEZs for small and medium enterprises in four divisions as it now thinks of a broader policy to involve private entrepreneurs in the initiative.

The country’s light engineering sub-sector is mulling to set up an exclusive private industrial zone in Dhaka to tap the potentials of the emerging business. Bangladesh Engineering Industry Owners Association (BEIOA) at its recent meeting approved the concept. BEIOA estimated that the project will cost around Tk 600 million for land procurement and development of infrastructure.

Singapore sought establishment of a special economic zone (SEZ) in Bangladesh for the Singaporean investors for boosting investment. A trade delegation of the Textile and Fashion Federation (TFF) of Singapore placed the plea for establishing the SEZ when they called on Industries Adviser Geetiara Safiya Choudhury at her secretariat office.

Bangladesh’s export earnings have reached at $9.912 billion in the first 10 months of fiscal 2006-07. The amount is an 18.5 per cent rise from the same period of the previous fiscal year. The target of earnings in export was $9.99 billion in the current fiscal year’s July-April period, which means the shortfall is .78pc.

The tariff changes in the new budget will hurt the country’s industrial sector. The strong import bias of the budget will encourage importers at the cost of local industries. Export oriented and back-ward linkage industries also stand to be hit by increase of duties on raw materials and capital machinery. In formulating the tariff rationalisation, the budget seems to have followed the trade policy prescriptions, which remain on the table for quite sometime in the form of structural adjustment programme. This prescription has been framed seemingly to enable the developing countries and the least developed countries (LDCs) to take advantage of the benefits of multilateral trade liberalisation because of limitations of their trading capacity (usually referred to as supply side constraints) and their trade policy framework marked by maintenance of high unbound tariffs. It is claimed that unbound tariffs create “disincentives to enter international markets”.

The Ministry of Finance has undertaken a package programme to properly implement the budget overcoming seven major economic challenges it detected for the new fiscal year beginning on July 1. They have inferred the broad-based economic challenges from the proposed budget for 2007-08, especially the finance adviser’s statement, and worked out huge tasks to be accomplished for overcoming the challenges.

Bangladeshi expatriates sent $5.46 billion in the last 11 months of the current fiscal year, marking about 25 per cent rise in the remittance inflow, Bangladesh Bank statistics said. Some 4.5 million Bangladeshi wage earners sent about $1 billion more than the corresponding period of the previous fiscal year. According to the statistics, the Bangladeshi expatriates had sent $4.37 billion from July to May of 2005-06 while the total remittance of the fiscal year stood at $4.8 billion.

Sonali Bank, a nationalised commercial bank (NCB), on june 5 got licence from the central bank to become a public limited company. As per the licence, the bank will conduct their activities following the Memorandum and Article of Association instead of the Nationalised Bank Order, 1972. The privatisation move empowers the bank’s management (board of directors) to take policy decisions independently, though the government will remain as owner. The independent board of directors of the bank will appoint its managing director of its choice, according to sources.

Business leaders in Chittagong on June 5 urged the government to immediately reduce import duties on essential commodities to help bring the essentials’ prices at a tolerable level during the upcoming Ramadan. They also suggested that the government create an interim buffer stock of some specific goods. Leaders of Chittagong Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) and importers said these during a view-exchange meeting with journalists in the port city. The CCCI placed an eight-point suggestion before the government in a bid to ensure uninterrupted supply of food grains, especially of essential ones, and keep their prices at tolerable level.

Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) has sent a 66-member high-powered business delegation to the 15th China Kunming Import and Export Commodities Fair 2007, scheduled to be held during June 6-10 at China’s Kunming. DCCI President Hossain Khaled heads the delegation. The main objective of the fair is to increase export of Bangladeshi commodities to Chinese market, and strengthen bilateral trade and economic cooperation between Bangladesh and China.

Inflation rate on point-to-point basis hit a record 8.28 per cent in April of the current fiscal year after 1998 while the rate of inflation increase in rural areas was higher than in urban areas. Non-food items saw higher inflation than food items, marking a significant change in the trend of inflation as during the earlier months prices of food items rose at much higher rates than non-food items. Overall inflation rate continues to increase with a 0.85 percentage point increase in April compared to the rate in March. Inflation rate of food and non-food items increased by 0.45 and 1.59 percentage points.

Japanese textile titan, Toray Group, will pour around US$ 200 million into Bangladesh’s textile sector, banking on the country’s cheap labour and a potentially huge apparel market. Initially, the Tokyo-based corporation, billed as the world’s largest textile producer, has decided to invest $90 million by September this year at the newly-developed Adamjee Export Processing Zone.