The International Chamber of Commerce Bangladesh (ICCB) yesterday defended the stock-market probe committees report that spotlighted deep manipulation in share trade.

Mahbubur Rahman, president of ICCB, said the regulators had apparently tried to prevent market overheating and to regulate volatility. “Sensing irregularity in the book-building method for initial public offerings, the practice was temporarily halted,” he said.

“There have been complaints of market manipulation; the report of the inquiry committee set up to look into this matter provides some clues to what really happened.”

“The full story is yet to be unfolded,” Rahman said.

Rahman spoke while presenting a report of the executive board at the chambers 16th annual council at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre in Dhaka.

He said Bangladesh can become an export powerhouse if it can get its act together and seize the opportunities.

“First of all, a big opportunity is unravelling right in our neighbourhood. With wages rising, China is fast becoming uncompetitive in most of its labour-intensive exports, such as textiles, shoes, furniture, toys, electrical goods, car parts, plastic products, kitchenware, and a host of other consumer goods,” Rahman said.

Foreign investors in these sectors are searching hard for alternative locations to set up industries, he added.

Rahman cautioned that the business sector is facing severe problems arising out of the liquidity crisis in the banks. This is regarded as a serious problem for the operation of business, and for the establishment of new manufacturing units. For the future of the economy, particularly for the private sector, it is vital that the banks resume their normal support to business, he added.

In the backdrop of the dual track recovery of the global economic environment, Bangladesh economy in the early months of fiscal 2010-11 demonstrated mixed signals, Rahman said. “If we consider the first five months of the current fiscal year, Bangladesh economy is on the rebound. Besides, the country has experienced few positive indicators in several sectors.”

But the rising trend of inflation, an upward trend in prices of essential consumer items, unstable situation of capital market, fall in remittance inflow and infrastructural constraints did not give Bangladesh a chance to relax in the outgoing year (2010) although it has overcome the economic meltdown successfully, the ICCB report said. However, in the outgoing year the economy witnessed good performances in the fields of export earnings and harvest of crops including boro and aman, the report added.

Global Risk Report 2011 of the World Economic Forum provides a high level overview of 37 selected global risks in which two cross-cutting global risks are economic disparity and global governance failures, the “macroeconomic imbalances” nexus, the “illegal economy” nexus and the “water-food-energy” nexus. .

Despite all hurdles, the ICCB Council expects that the country is now poised for a take-off stage and Bangladesh is expected to graduate from the least developed countries group to a middle income country by shortest possible time with proper infrastructure support.