Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN) - The BBN (Bangladesh Business News) has prepared the morning business round up compiling reports, published by different newspapers and news portals in Bangladesh.
Plan to take $600m hard loan from World Bank
Bangladesh plans to take a hard loan of $600m from the World Bank for a short term along with a soft loan for the country’s productive infrastructural projects, said official sources. The government has also taken an initiative to start the second phase of the Investment Promotion and Financing Facility (IPFF) project. Finance Division officials said the global lender has come up with a fresh proposal and the division and Bangladesh Bank are now reviewing that proposal.
Priority REB projects face fund shortage
The Power Division is facing difficulties in implementing some major rural electrification projects for non-availability of fund, officials said Saturday. Officials said the Power Division recently sought Tk 40 billion for six development projects as their execution is being seriously affected due to fund shortage.
Trade gap with China rises by 18.77pc to $8.83b in FY16
The country’s trade gap with China increased by 18.77 per cent to $8.83 billion in last financial year from $7.44 billion in the FY 2015-16 despite a zero-tariff export facility for a number of items to the Chinese market. An economist and Bangladesh Bank officials said the trade gap with China continued rising in recent years as Bangladesh failed to attract the Chinese consumers to its products due to lack of product diversification.
Hope stems from vibrant ties
Relations between Bangladesh and India are graduating to a new level as the two countries have come closer over connectivity, ending years of distrust, said top government functionaries, trade analysts and diplomats yesterday. The new level of cooperation helped the two countries harness the benefits of bilateral and sub-regional trade and investment, they said.
Bangladesh’s forex reserve stands $30.84bn after ACU payment
Bangladesh made a routine payment of US$ 815 million to the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) against imports during the July-August period of the current calendar year. After the payment, the country’s foreign exchange (forex) reserve came down to $ 30.84 billion on Thursday from $ 31.50 billion of the previous working day, according to the central bank statistics.
India, Bangladesh must create value chains to boost trade
India and Bangladesh have failed to create value chains in the manner that China has done with its neighbours to spur regional economic development, eminent economist Rehman Sobhan said yesterday. This has become one of the major constraints to stimulating exports from Bangladesh to India, which is the third largest economy in the world by purchasing power parity, according to Sobhan.
Two long-term T-bonds planned for employee pension funds
Bangladesh Bank is now working to introduce two more long-term treasury bonds to help the government and private organisations to keep their employees’ pension and provident funds with the instruments. The tenure of the two long-term treasury bonds will be 25-year and 30-year. The central bank has already referred about the two treasury bonds in its latest monetary policy statement for July-December of 2016.
Dr. Atiur off to Washington on World Bank invitation
Former governor of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) Dr. Atiur Rahman left Dhaka early Sunday for Washington DC at the invitation of Kaushik Basu, Chief Economist and Senior Vice President of World Bank (WB), to share his experience in innovative central banking with senior officials of the WB and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
BBN/SSR/AD