RMG factory

Working in a RMG factory of Bangladesh BBN file photo

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.

Govt sends draft plan on labour rights to EU

The government has made a time-bound commitment to address the European Union (EU)‘s concerns over labour rights issues aimed retain the GSP facility, officials said. The government made its resolve to do so in a draft action plan sent to the EU last Thursday, they added.

Private credit growth falls further in November
Private credit growth decelerated further in November as most of the banks maintained a ‘conservative approach’ towards lending, bankers said. The sector’s credit growth came down to 9.87 per cent in November 2019 on a year-on-year basis from 14.01 per cent a year ago, according to the Bangladesh Bank’s latest statistics.

Why is private sector credit growth sinking?

Businesses and bankers often blame political instability for sliding private sector credit growth. But it was calm as the smoothest waters on the political front last year after the polls on December 30, 2018 and yet the slide did not stop.

NPL crisis has no magic remedy
There is no magic solution to the soaring non-performing loans in the country’s banking sector, said Eastern Bank Limited managing director and chief executive officer Ali Reza Iftekhar in a recent interview with New Age. There will have to be a three-to-five-year firm loan recovery drive to rescue the banking sector from the problem, he said at the bank’s headquarters at Gulshan in the capital.

Weekly Review: Stocks snap four-week losing streak

Bangladesh’s stocks posted a modest gain last week, snapping a four-week losing streak as bargain hunters showed their appetite on sector-wise issues. Week-on-week, DSEX, the prime index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), went up by 40.45 points or 0.92 per cent to settle at 4,459, after shedding 312 points in the past four straight weeks.

Bangladesh economy to be 25th largest in 15 years

Bangladesh’s economy will make one of the biggest jumps between 2020 and 2034 on the back of demographic dividend and rising per capita income, according to the World Economic League Table 2020. Bangladesh ranks 40th among 193 countries this year and will rise to 25th in 2034, a spot currently held by Belgium, showed the latest edition of the WELT, produced by London-based Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), an international economic forecaster.

New VAT law sees little success due to frequent changes
The new VAT law, which came into effect six months ago, has failed to bring about the expected positive results in revenue collection and make the VAT system automated due to the massive changes made by the revenue board in the original law passed in the parliament, experts and officials said. Changes made in the Value-Added Tax and Supplementary Duty Act‑2012 over the past six months had caused the new law to take a form similar to that of the scrapped VAT Act-1991, they said.

Onion prices increase again
Onion prices have once again jumped by Tk30-80 per kilogram in last two days despite arrival of newly harvested local variety, Murikata, in markets for many days now. Visiting several kitchen markets in the capital on Saturday, a kg of the local onion was found selling at Tk200 on an average, which had come down to Tk120 just three days ago from the Tk260 per kg.

BBN/SSR/AD