Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN) – Highlights of Thursday’s  newspapers:

The Financial Express:

— The Bangladesh authorities have provided partial road transit to India through extending an existing river transit facility by allowing trucks to enter directly into the Indian territory from a transshipment point in Bangladesh, observers said on Wednesday.

— The central bank may relax the conditions for rescheduling margin loans on case-to-case basis aiming to help stabilize the current volatile situation in the country’s stock market, a top official said Wednesday.

— Finance Minister AMA Muhith claimed Wednesday that the economy was now in a “very good” shape but he identified a few problems such as pressure on the balance of payments (BoP), enhanced subsidies, higher import bills and the double-digit inflation.

The Daily Star:
 
— Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday pointed to corruption by the last BNP-led government as the reason behind the recent suspension of World Bank funds for the Padma Bridge project.

— It was a spectacular crash. In 10 minutes since start of trading yesterday, the Dhaka stocks lost 137 points. The slide enlarged to 189 points in 55 minutes. But when the day closed, the index covered the slip quite a bit and ended with a 48-point loss on another day of thin trading. This happened despite the government’s new incentives to perk up the market.

–The country’s banking system has much lower than the legally permissible involvement in the stockmarket. But compared to international practices, the banks are already over-exposed.

The New Age:

— THE benefits of development will not reach the poor until and unless corruption is brought down to a manageable level, says the director general of the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, Mustafa K Mujeri. ‘In many cases, funds are channelled to areas that do not provide any dividend to the common people,’ he said in an exclusive interview with New Age on October 11. ‘It is thus essential to curb corruption.’

— ‘Regular transit’ of Indian goods from Kolkata to Agartala through Bangladesh began Wednesday under Bangladesh-India Protocol on Inland Water Transit and Trade.

— Investors and stakeholders of the country’s ailing capital market are now waiting for the decision of the banks on their investments in the market after all measures taken by the government and the Securities and Exchange Commission failed to stabilise the market.

BBN/SSR/SI-20Oct11-11:48 am (BST)