Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)- Bangladesh has no immediate plan to sign TICFA as the country needs more time to set much higher labour standards tagged by the US as a precondition with the trade and investment cooperation deal, an official said.
The US has been pressing Bangladesh for signing the Trade and Investment Cooperation Framework Agreement (TICFA) for several years.
The Bangladesh Bank (BB) has issued a guideline with the objective of helping the local and foreign brokerage firms woo globally recognized portfolio managers and boost foreign investment in the country's moribund stock market.
Bangladeshis working abroad sent home over US$14 billion in 2012 despite the ongoing economic slowdown in the USA and the EU countries, officials said on Wednesday.
“We expect that the existing inflow of remittances to continue in the new calendar year," a senior official of the BB told
BBN in Dhaka, adding that the central bank is continuously working to increase the flow of inward remittances.
More than eight million Bangladeshi overseas workers remitted $ 14.175 billion, a record in the country’s history, in 2012, marking a 16.49 per cent growth over that of the previous calendar year.
He also said the stable exchange rate of Bangladesh Taka (BDT) against the US dollar also helped achieve the higher growth in inward remittances in 2012.
The country received $ 12.168 billion in remittances in 2011, registering a year-on-year growth of 10.57 per cent. The growth was 2.68 per cent in 2010.
The Ministry of Finance (MoF) has initiated a move to complete all the necessary internal formalities by next March with regard to the issuance of
'sovereign bond' worth $500 million in international markets, particularly in the bond markets of New York and Singapore.
The external process like getting registration in foreign stock markets and securing approval for trading in the Bangladesh Bond in the secondary markets might take a couple of months after the completion of internal procedures, an MoF official said.
Garment makers on Wednesday urged Bangladesh Inland Container Depot Association (BICDA) to reverse its decision to hike labour charges by about 88 percent in handling export cartons.
Dhaka stocks ended lower for the second running session on Wednesday with turnover shrinkage further as most investors followed
‘wait-and-see policy’.
The benchmark general index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange ended at 4,139.07 points, plunging by 51.91 points or.23 per cent.
Turnover value dropped to BDT 1.20 billion, down by 21.56 per cent from previous session’s BDT 1.53 billion.
Out of 261 shares and mutual fund units were traded, among them 40 advanced, 192 declined and 29 remained unchanged.
Bangladesh Bank is going to take another contractionary monetary policy for January-June of 2013 with a view to tackle inflation, said central bank officials
.
The BB is likely to announce the tight monetary policy on January 30 for the fourth time in a row, a central bank official told
New Age on Wednesday.
BBN/SSR/SI-03Jan13-10:00 am (BST)
