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.
Elevated Expressway stuck in limbo
Bangladesh's first PPP project, the Dhaka Elevated Expressway, is stuck in limbo after the foreign partner found no funding and the contractor backed out. China Railway Construction Corporation was originally hired as the engineering, procurement and construction contractor for building the highway. “But the Chinese company now wants out,” said an official of the Dhaka Elevated Expressway Public Private Partnership Project.
Philippine court orders remitting $15.25m to BB
A court ordered Monday the Philippine central bank to remit around US$15.25 million to Bangladesh Bank, out of the 81 million dollars stolen into that country from BB foreign reserves. Officials of BB told reporters in Dhaka that a Philippines regional trial court issued the order upon Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the Filipino central bank, on conclusion of the hearing over the cyber heist.
Pvt sector buyers’ credit nears $5b
Buyers’ credit in the country’s business sector continued to maintain an upward trend and reached to almost $5 billion at the end of July as the local importers are taking the advantage of receiving foreign loans at lower rates of interest. The buyers’ credit increased by 10.95 per cent to $4.94 billion as of July 31 from $4.45 billion as of June 30 of this year, according to the latest Bangladesh Bank data.
State banks still hostage to influential borrowers
A number of state-owned banks continue to approve and reschedule massive project loans without proper scrutiny despite major scandals in recent years such as the Hall-Mark and BASIC Bank loan scams. Influential borrowers are still taking money out of the state banks in the name of project loans and the boards of those banks are approving them without scrutinising the viability of these projects.
DSE turnover crosses BDT 5.0 billion-mark
Bangladesh’s stocks closed slightly higher on Monday with turnover crossing BDT 5.0 billion-mark on the premier bourse as optimistic investors remained active on sector specific stocks. The market started with a positive note and the key index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) gained almost 19 points within first hour of trading, but last three hours of the session lost most of the early gain, ultimately finished only 2.20 points higher.
BIDA suffers switchover troubles
Major activities at the newly established Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA) are being 'hampered' as officers drawn from the defunct BoI lack legitimate authority to sign on decisions, sources said. The now-defunct Board of Investment (BoI) used to actually run with officers deputed from different departments, including autonomous organisations.
Highway projects: Chinese cos likely to get $4b work without tender
This week the government is going to award two highway projects worth over $4 billion to Chinese companies without any tender, officials have said. The first project involves upgrading the 226-kilometre Dhaka-Sylhet Highway into four-lane at an estimated cost of Tk 12,665 crore, equivalent to $1.58 billion. The other project involves construction of the Marine Drive Expressway and Sitakunda-Chittagong-Cox’s Bazar Coastal Protection Works at the proposed cost of $2.8 billion.
Prepare list of tax-evading cos
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has instructed its field-level tax officials to prepare a list of the organisations that have been evading tax and furnishing it to the board. It also directed them to devise strategies to make these errant organisations tax-compliant.
BBN/SSR/AD