Traffic Congestion: Tk 20,000cr loss to economy a year

Traffic congestion in the capital eats up around Tk 20,000 crore a year, an expert said yesterday, quoting a government report. Some 32 lakh business hours are also lost to the curse every day. Prof Akter Mahmud of Jahangirnagar University’s Urban and Regional Planning department made the comments, citing the Revised Strategic Transport Plan (RSTP) of 2016, at a programme in the capital’s LGED auditorium. Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC), an independent think-tank, and state-owned Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics jointly organised the two-day event, titled “Urban Poverty: Challenges and Solutions Conference”, in partnership with the World Bank and the UNDP. Prof Mahmud presented a paper on the challenges of mass transport during the day’s second session titled “Urban Poverty: Access to Services”. The session was chaired by Prof Sekandar Khan, vice-chancellor of the East Delta University.

Source: http://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/tk-20000cr-loss-year-economy-1289203

A major shift in household income survey

The government has made a major shift from annual estimates to quarterly ones in conducting this year’s household income and expenditure survey (HIES), a top official of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics said yesterday. Also, division-level estimates will be expanded to district-level estimates, said Dipankar Roy, project director of the survey, BBS. “This is a major shift to understand poverty at regional level,” Roy said at a programme styled ‘Urban poverty: Challenges and solutions conference’, held at the LGED auditorium in Dhaka. Power and Participation Research Centre, an independent think-tank and state-owned BBS jointly organised the two-day event in partnership with the World Bank and United Nations Development Programme. Mustafa K Mujeri, executive director of Institute for Inclusive Finance and Development, chaired the session. Urban areas of four divisions — Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna and Rajshahi — are further stratified into ‘urban’ and ‘city corporation’ strata to capture variability of city samples efficiently in the upcoming HIES, Roy said. Quoting the preliminary results of a survey on slums in Dhaka city, Monica Yanez-Pagans of the WB’s poverty global practice department said non-monetary dimensions are the main reasons for poverty in urban slums instead of monetary ones.

Source: http://www.thedailystar.net/business/major-shift-household-income-survey-1289287

Urban poverty on the rise: WB

The number of urban poor in Bangladesh rose about 33 percent to eight million between 1992 and 2010, the World Bank said yesterday. However, the number of rural poor decreased from 55 million to 46 million during the period, said Ming Zhang, sector manager for urban South Asia at the WB. The quality of life of the urban poor is also worse than that of the rural poor, he said in his presentation at the inaugural of a two-day international conference on urban poverty. The Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC) and Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) jointly organised the programme in the city’s LGED auditorium in partnership with the WB and United Nations Development Programme.

Source: http://www.thedailystar.net/business/urban-poverty-the-rise-wb-1289299

China proposes feasibility study on free-trade agreement with Bangladesh:

Dhaka sees little benefit from trade pact
China has proposed a joint feasibility study on a bilateral free-trade agreement (FTA) to be signed with Bangladesh. Trade officials in Dhaka, however, find such pact not so beneficial to the country, officials said. In a recent letter to the ministry of commerce (MoC) the Chinese embassy in Dhaka requested the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for launching feasibility study on the proposed trade pact. In the draft MoU China said the feasibility study should be comprehensive and cover sectors of common interests. A senior trade official told the FE the issue of FTA with China was discussed in a meeting last month at the MoC. The meeting concluded with the opinion that Bangladesh would not sign a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with any country until 2025, before losing facilities it enjoy as a least developed country (LDC). He said signing FTA with China will cause a significant revenue loss for Bangladesh that imports substantial volume of goods from the former.

Source: http://print.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/2016/09/25/152483

Bharat Petroleum seeks higher premium for diesel export to Bangladesh:

Proposes to use lorries pending pipeline building
India has proposed to export lorry-loads of diesel to Bangladesh from Numaligarh refinery of the state-run Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) on a regular basis, pending a joint pipeline. Officials said BPCL recently sent in a proposal to Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) on supply of around 5,000 metric tons (mt) of diesel per month by tank lorry from Siliguri. A senior BPC official said the exporter sought a premium of USD 8.3 per barrel to Mean of Platts Arab Gulf (MoPAG) diesel assessments on cost-and-freight (CFR) basis meaning the price would be above USD 8.3 per barrel from the international benchmark price of this fuel oil. BPC has yet to decide on the diesel import on tank lorry from the Numaligarh refinery in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, said the official. He said the premium would be a crucial issue in taking decision on import of diesel from the BPCL. The petroleum corporation, meanwhile, imported some 2,200mt diesel by rail from the Numaligarh refinery in March under a ‘goodwill gesture’. BPCL had supplied the consignment of diesel, having 0.03% sulphur content, at Parbatipur inside Bangladesh. BPC had to pay a premium of USD 7.0 per barrel to MoPAG diesel assessments on CFR basis to the Indian petroleum corporation.

Source: http://print.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/2016/09/25/152481

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