Good morning. Here's what happened overnight and what you need to know today.
1.
Added VAT Burden Looms as Govt Races to Meet IMF's Revenue Target: Amid high inflationary pressure, consumers may face an added tax burden as the government plans to remove reduced VAT rates on certain products to meet the IMF's target of generating an additional Tk12,000 crore in revenue this fiscal year. To meet the global lender's revenue target, authorities are considering applying the standard 15% VAT rate on the assembly, raw material imports, and retail stages for locally produced mobile phones and refrigerators. (The Business Standard)
2.
NBR Conducts Drive at Resort of ex-DB Chief’s Relatives: The National Board of Revenue's (NBR's) Central Intelligence Cell (CIC) yesterday conducted a drive at "President Resort" in Kishoreganj, around 100km north of the capital. The drive was conducted as part of its investigation into several allegations against the owners, including occupation of land by force. Different documents, four hard disks, and 16 registers were seized while evidence from alleged victims was collected during the drive, assisted by police, the land office, and other state agencies. (The Daily Star)
3.
RMG Workers' Wage to Go Up 9.0% Annually: Workers in Bangladesh's main export-earning garment industry finally get a 9.0-percent annual wage hike from the existing 5.0 per cent, following waves of labour unrest. Garment workers will get the enhanced wages from January, Ministry of Labour and Employment (MoLE) adviser of the interim government M Sakhawat Hussain made the announcement at a press briefing after a meeting held at his secretariat office in Dhaka. The annual-increment hike comes to 4.0 per cent, as agreed at the tripartite meeting, amid labour unrest in the country's apparel sector. (The Financial Express)
4.
No IOC Bids for Exploration: Not a single international oil company (IOC) did come for bidding, finally, following open tendering by the state-run Petrobangla to attract foreign investment for bay hydrocarbon exploration, said sources. "We were surprised to see that not a single IOC did submit bids by the close of bid-submission deadline on Monday," Petrobangla chairman Zanendra Nath Sarker told the FE. Mr Sarker could not say the cause of the lack of interest from the IOCs in Bangladesh's offshore hydrocarbon resources. (The Financial Express)
5.
BB to Keep Policy Rates Unchanged as Panel Suggests Shift from Crawling Peg: A high-powered panel of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) decided to maintain the policy rate at 10 percent until the inflation comes down to a desired level and also spoke about moving away from the crawling peg and letting market forces determine the US dollar exchange rate. However, the meeting did not finalise anything about ditching the crawling peg right now, according to the meeting minutes of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). (The Daily Star)
6.
No Overnight Cure for Ailing Financial Sector: There is no overnight cure for the deep-rooted challenges facing the country's banking sector, Abdul Awal Mintoo, former president of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI), said yesterday. He also said the initiatives that the Bangladesh Bank has taken so far are not enough to bring down non-performing loans. He made the remarks while speaking on the current business and investment environment and the way forward at the Economic Reporters' Forum (ERF) office in Dhaka. The ERF organised the conversation. (The Daily Star)
----Saju Sarker
BBN/SSR/AD