Investors and banks have invested more than half-a-trillion dollars into emerging markets in 2006, with China and other Asian economies accounting for the lion’s share of such money flows. The 2006 figure of 502 billion dollars was just slightly below the record level of 509 billion dollars in 2005.

BRRI developed two new variety of rice suitable for salinity and flood-prone areas. The National Seed Board has recently approved these two varieties developed by the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI). The varieties, first of their kind in Bangladesh, are suitable for the areas having problems of flood and salt and well cultivable during boro season .

Dhaka stocks witnessed massive rise in transactions and prices last week due to the apparent end of political pandemonium. Turnover at the Dhaka Stock Exchange increased by 160.99 per cent to total at Tk 438.57 crore in last week from the previous week’s figure of Tk 168.04 crore.

Import of edible oil by Bangladesh increased significantly in the 2006, which also saw exorbitant price hike of the essential kitchen commodity. Market analysts observe that the rising consumption of edible oil mainly by the rural population, having expansion of their buying capacity in recent times, have prompted its import in greater volume.

The yen slumped to a 13-month low against the dollar in Asian trade Wednesday following reports that the Bank of Japan will refrain from raising interest rates this week, dealers said. The dollar rose to 120.74 yen in Tokyo afternoon trade, off a high of 120.90 but still up from 120.65 in New York late Tuesday.

India would start border trade with Bhutan and Myanmar through Arunachal Pradesh within a year, junior minister for Commerce Jairam Ramesh said.

The government will push forward the process of offloading public sector shares and take fresh initiative to bring profit-making firms like telecom and power companies into the stock market. The finance advisor to the interim caretaker government, AB Mirza Azizul Islam, is quoted to have said, ‘We will go ahead with the existing policy decision to offload government shares in enterprises on the stock market.’

India’s capacity constraints may come in the way of sustaining an annual economic growth rate of 9 per cent despite the fact that the economy is showing signs of overheating, ratings agency Moody’s Investors Service said on January,16. Moody’s said fast growth meant inflation was likely to stay above the central bank’s end-March projection of 5.0-5.5 per cent.

Export Processing Zones (EPZs) in Bangladesh created employment opportunities for 45,000 in the year 2006 as against 43,000 in the previous year. Forty-eight factories came forward to invest in EPZs during the year with an investment of US$376 million. Twenty-one of them were fully foreign, eight were joint-venture and remaining 19 were hundred per cent domestic owned . In 2005, EPZs attracted US$193 million and the growth registered to 95 per cent in 2006.

The newly appointed caretaker government in a landmark move on January 16 published the gazette notifications of four rules relevant to separating the judiciary from the executive. The much-expected separation of the judiciary now requires only an amendment to the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) as per the 12-point directive of the Supreme Court (SC) given in 1999.

The central Bank’s monetary policies in the second half of the FY07 will continue to aim it supporting annual real GDP of 7.0 per cent, while keeping inflationary pressures under control. This was disclosed in the Monetary Policy released by the Bangladesh Governor Dr. Salehuddin Ahmed. The Bank projected that the full fiscal year growth would be in the range of 6.5-6.8 per cent while inflation would be between 6.85 and 6.95 per cent in January-June period. The projected growth rate range is between 6.5 and 6.8 per cent but the central bank has taken policies to support a seven per cent growth provided that conducive political environment prevails.

The South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA) sub-group on non-tariff measures (NTMs) would sit for the second time on 28 January at Lahore in Pakistan in a bid to resolve the issue of non-tariffs barriers, a major hurdle to implementation of the pact on free trade in the South Asian region.

According to the decision at the last ministerial council meeting of the SAFTA, the sub-group will review the existing non-tariffs barriers (NTBs) and para-tariffs barriers (PTBs) that were identified by the SAARC member countries and take steps to remove the snags through bilateral and regional negotiations.

A three-day Asia Pharma Expo-2007 (APE) will begin Dhaka on 11 December aiming to explore the vast business opportunities in the pharmaceutical sector. The APE show has already established a new landmark for the pharma professionals all over the world. IN 2005, Bangladesh also hosted the APE 2005 in Dhaka.

The government’s revenue earning in the current fiscal year is likely to fall short by about Tk 50 billion (Tk.5,000 crore) against the target fixed for the National Board of Revenue (NBR) if the current sluggish pace of revenue collection continues. The revenue shortfall during the first five months of the current fiscal year was Tk 23.74 billion with the actual earnings being Tk 117.87 billion during the period against the target of Tk 141.61 billion, according to the latest statistics of the NBR.

The Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) in a unique move to boost the export-diversification programme is going to launch a special drive named ‘One District One product programme’ soon. Considering the country’s sole dependence on the ready made garment sector for nearly 76 per cent of its total export earnings and to maintain the current trend of robust export growth in the coming years the EPB has taken this special move.

Inflation jumped by 64.21 per cent during the last 10 years mainly due to increase in cost of food items and record surge in global fuel prices, according to Bangladesh Bank annual report. The rate was higher in rural areas where price levels went up by 65.37 per cent against 61.39 per cent rise in urban areas between 1996 and 2006.

Bangladeshis living and working abroad sent home a record 5.46 billion dollars in 2006, a year-on increase of 28 per cent. The figure is more than 1.21 billion dollars in comparison with 2005.

The foreign exchange reserves of Bangladesh touched all-time high yesterday as the remittance inflow marked a 30 percent growth during the first six months of the current fiscal year.In view of the average remittance inflow, the growth is seen to be significant compared to the same period of last fiscal, although such a flow came down slightly to $534.20 million in December from $598.29million in November this fiscal.

Business leaders in an emergency meeting on Saturday, January 6 renewed their appeal to major political parties to sit for dialogue to resolve the political impasse for the sake of the country as a whole and economy in particular. They said that ongoing political unrest is badly affecting exports which will have long term effect on the industrial and export growth.

The Country’s overall balance of payments (BoP) continued to show surplus trend in the first four months of current fiscal year despite significant decline in external assistance and lower inflow of foreign direct investment.

Overall balance stood at $82 million in the first four months of 2006-07, which was $133 million in the first quarter of the same fiscal.