TT-Clean: 77.1 | TK BC-Selling: 78.1
TK OD-Sight: 76.88 TK | TC-Selling: 78.1 TK
TT-Clean: 77.1 | TK BC-Selling: 78.1
TK OD-Sight: 76.88 TK | TC-Selling: 78.1 TK
TT-Clean: 77.1 | TK BC-Selling: 78.1
TK OD-Sight: 76.88 TK | TC-Selling: 78.1 TK
Rate last updated: 02/01/2014 11:15:04 AM
The banking industry has been able to recover only one-fifth of their written off loans in the last 14 years in what can be described as a spectacular backfire of the central bank policy introduced in 2003. The Bangladesh Bank introduced the policy with the view to cleaning up the banks’ balance sheets. “But banks were asked to continue their recovery efforts,” said a senior BB official. Between January 2003 and March 2017, banks wrote off a total of Tk 44,412 crore. Of the amount, Tk 34,922 crore, or 79 percent, remained outstanding at the end of March. In short, the practice is contributing to the banks’ deteriorating financial health, as every year the write-off loan figure is increasing. The amount of written off loans in state-owned banks stood at Tk 17,732 crore and at private banks Tk 16,079 crore.
Source: http://www.thedailystar.net/business/only-one-fifth-written-loans-recovered-1462297
Bangladesh’s broad money growth dropped in significant volume in the past financial year for what economists view a deflated investment demand both in public and private sectors. Such low money-supply growth, they think, surely had impacted the country’s economic growth. Broad money or M2, a broad measure of money supply that covers cash in circulation and all deposits, expanded just by 10.88% or BDT 996.98 billion in 2016-17 against 16.35% or BDT 1.29 trillion in 2015-16. This broad money growth in the last financial year was 4.62% points lower than target, marking a new low at 10.54% over the same period in 2016. However, other financing data like reserve money remained robust over 16% in the year under review.
The exchange rate of Bangladesh Taka (BDT) appreciated significantly against the US dollar at the customer level on Thursday following ‘persuasion’ by the central bank. The local currency gained 0.36% or around 30 cents against the US currency at customer level for clearing import payment obligations, according to the market operators. The average exchange rate of the US dollar came down to BDT 81.7062 for sale of bill for collection (BC) on Thursday, from BDT 82.0027 of the previous working day, according to the statistics of Bangladesh Foreign Exchange Dealers Association (BAFEDA).
Bangladesh’s balance of payments entered the negative territory for the first time in 16 years in July on the back of a wide mismatch in trade. The overall balance was $179 million in the deficit in the first month of fiscal 2017-18 against $480 million in the surplus a year earlier. While historical monthly data is not available, the last time the overall balance was in the negative was back in fiscal 2000-01, when it was $281 million in the deficit for the whole fiscal year. The current account balance also traversed to the negative territory for the first time in four years in fiscal 2016-17. However, Bangladesh Bank projects that the overall balance will be $2.35 billion in the surplus at the end of the fiscal year, but the current account deficit will reach $2.72 billion. In July import soared 47 percent, whereas a year earlier it crept up only 2.99 percent. As the import of food, capital machinery and raw cotton increased so did the overall import, said a BB official.
Source: http://www.thedailystar.net/business/bop-hits-deficit-first-time-16yrs-1463356
Interest rates on lending decreased further in July as commercial banks were forced to cut the rates against the backdrop of businesses’ persistent reluctance to borrow from banks amid a sluggish business situation in the country. Interest rates on lending, however, had slightly increased to 9.66 per cent in May after a 29-month fall. The weighted average interest on lending decreased to 9.51 per cent in July from 9.56 per cent in June this year. Banks were forced to cut the lending rates due to a sluggish credit demand from the businesspeople amid a dull business situation in the country for long, a BB official told New Age on Thursday. The BB data, however, showed that the weighted average interest rate on the banks’ deposit products also decreased to 4.89 per cent in July from 4.93 per cent in June of 2017. The BB official said that banks continued to decrease the rates of interest on their deposit products as the general people were now more interested in investing their money in the national savings certificates. The rates on the government tools are higher compared with the rates on the prevailing deposit products offered by banks, he said.
Source: http://www.newagebd.net/article/24140/banks-cut-rate-again-in-july
The securities regulator has taken an initiative to make the OTC (over-the-counter) market vibrant through the reforms of rules. The Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) has formed a three-member committee to prepare a report on possible changes of rules for the OTC market. The BSEC committee led by its director Md. Mansur Rahman will submit their report to the commission within 45 working days. The regulatory move came following the DSE’s proposal regarding changing existing rules of the OTC market. The DSE’s proposal regarding reform of the OTC market was submitted to the BSEC in March last.
Source: http://today.thefinancialexpress.com.bd/stock-corporate/bsec-to-make-otc-mkt-vibrant-1505573509
The net foreign investment in the Dhaka bourse plunged 84% month-on-month in August last as overseas investors preferred to book profits. Market insiders said the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) indices and turnover rose last month, prompting some foreign investors to sell a portion of their shares from their portfolio to book profits. Foreign investors bought shares worth BDT 4.32 billion (432 crore) and sold shares worth BDT 4.0 billion in August last. That left their net investment at BDT 320 million, according to DSE statistics. In July last the net foreign investment was BDT 2.0 billion as overseas investors bought stocks worth BDT 6.25 billon and sold stocks worth BDT 4.25 billion.
Pubali Bank Ltd. recently signed an agreement with Asgar Ali Hospital. Abu Habib Khairul Kabir, General Manager of General Services and Development Division of Pubali Bank Ltd. and Professor Dr. Zabrul SM Haque, CEO & Director Medical Services of Asgar Ali Hospital signed the agreement on behalf of their respective organizations. Under this agreement, all the employees and cardholders of Pubali Bank Ltd. will get corporate benefits while taking healthcare services from Asgar Ali Hospital.
Standard Chartered Bank, Bangladesh inaugurated a Business Development Office (BDO) at the city’s Uttara area recently. The Business Development Office was formally inaugurated by Farooq Siddiqi, Global Head of Trade, Transaction Banking, Standard Chartered Bank. Also present were senior managers of Standard Chartered Bank and several clients.
Around 40 per cent of the city’s hotels, restaurants, fast-food shops, guest houses and beauty parlours are yet to have tax files despite running full-fledged business, according to a preliminary estimate by the taxmen. There are around 7,000 of such business organisations in the city. To bring these service-providing entities under tax net, the National Board of Revenue (NBR) is going to start a special survey today (Sunday). Taxmen suspected that many of the recently launched businesses involved in providing such services do not even have Electronic Taxpayers Identification Number (e-TIN). Three teams of the Dhaka Income tax zone-7 will visit the business establishments to collect information till October 30 next and check their tax payment status. The survey is a part of the NBR’s country-wide Income Tax Survey-2016.
The National Board of Revenue has abandoned plans to buy electronic cash registers (ECR) and distribute them among retailers and wholesalers. Instead, the revenue authority plans to enlist importers, offer duty-free benefits and ask shopkeepers to install the devices for recording sales data electronically, senior officials of the NBR said. Md Rezaul Hasan, project director of the VAT Online Project, said proper implementation of the new law on value added tax necessitated the government to make the purchase. “As the implementation of the VAT law has been deferred by two years, we will issue circular soon asking businesses to install ECRs with certain specifications.” Another reason for scrapping the purchase decision is that providing after-sales service for the ECRs is not a manageable proposition for the NBR, said VOP Deputy Project Director Syed Mushfequr Rahman.
Source: http://www.thedailystar.net/business/nbr-bins-plan-purchase-electronic-cash-registers-1463350
The number of e-TIN holders has exceeded three million in the country, according to the statistics of the National Board of Revenue (NBR), reports BSS. A total of 30,50,405 people got registered with the electronic tax identification number (e-TIN) till August this year, which the NBR describes as a success towards its revenue collection efforts. Revealing the statistics, NBR member Md Abdur Razzaque said: “Citizens of the country are being conscious and they are spontaneously getting registered with e-TIN.” He said nearly 50,000 new tax payers are completing e-TIN registration every month. “e-TIN holders would reach 35 lakh within the current fiscal,” hoped the NBR member.
Source: http://thefinancialexpress.com.bd/national/number-of-e-tin-holders-exceed-three-million-1505572989
Status change entails a cost as the World Bank is going to make lending to Bangladesh much costlier, with interest rates rising above 2.0 per cent, for the country’s economic graduation. Officials said Saturday the multilateral development financier would raise the cost of funds from next financial year (FY) 2018-19, after a long time of concessional assistance for bankrolling Bangladesh’s development recipe. A proposal is learnt to have been made to Bangladesh to enter into the WB’s costliest lending arm, IBRD (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development), to borrow funds, if necessary. The Washington-based lender has proposed 2.0 to 2.62 per cent interest rates and stringent repayment conditions for Bangladesh from the next fiscal, raising the interest from the current level of 0.75 per cent, the officials said. The repayment period of the loan will also be reduced to 30 years and the grace period to five years from the existing 36 years and six years respectively.
The 225-megawatt Shikalbaha power plant in Chittagong will run at full blast from next month, feeding an additional 75 megawatts (MW) of electricity to the national grid. Located in Patiya Upazila near Karnaphuli river, the combined-cycle dual-fuel power plant is expected to partially reduce the electricity crunch in the commercially important greater Chittagong region. The plant is already channelling 150mw electricity into the national grid with the inception of its single cycle back in May this year. Now, an additional 75 megawatts of power is going to be added with the formal commencing of the combined cycle on October 02, Power Division officials said.
GE Power will supply power generation equipment for the upcoming 220-megawatt electricity plant in Bhola, said the US energy firm in a statement. GE said it has recently been selected by India’s Shapoorji Pallonji Group (SP Group), which will build the plant, to supply the equipment. This will be GE’s second power plant in Bhola of the same capacity; the first one was commissioned in 2015. The combined-cycle power plant will use GE’s F-class gas turbines. Mitesh Soni, business head for power business at SP Group, said the power project would be an important milestone for the group in Bangladesh. “GE’s technological prowess and on-the-ground local market expertise proved to be a huge advantage for our teams.” SP Group has signed a 22-year power purchase agreement with Bangladesh Power Development Board. The power plant will operate on dual-fuel technology using natural gas as the primary fuel and diesel as the back-up fuel and is expected to achieve commercial operations by December 2019.
Source: www.thedailystar.net/business/ge-power-provide-equipment-220mw-bhola-plant-1463326
The government is working to build five major oil-carrying pipelines having the total length of over 600 kilometres (km) at a cost of around Tk 81.21 billion by next three years, officials said. Setting up of these oil pipelines will help boost petroleum product transport smoothly across the country at reduced cost, they added. The pipelines include four intra-country pipelines and a cross-country pipeline with neighbouring India, Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) director for operations and planning Sayed Mohammad Mozammel Haque told the FE. Of the proposed pipelines, a 237-km pipeline is planned to carry diesel from Chittagong to Dhaka, a 17-km pipeline to carry jet fuel from Pitloganj of Narayanganj to Kurmitola aviation depot, two 110-km pipelines to be constructed under single-point mooring (SPM) system to carry crude oil and diesel from vessels far offshore to an onshore terminal in Chittagong and a 130-km pipeline to carry diesel from India’s Numaligarh refinery to Parbatipur in northern Bangladesh, he said.
Bangladesh’s readymade garment export to its major destinations including the European countries, United States and Canada achieved significant growth in the first two months of the current financial year 2017-18. But the export earnings from the Asian countries including Japan, China and India declined in the period. Experts and exporters say the growth trend is satisfactory and Bangladesh is getting benefits of recent rebound of the euro against the dollar. They also say though China is a promising market, Bangladesh has been failing to gain its market share due to lack of competitiveness while Vietnam is getting more space in that market. According to the latest Export Promotion Bureau data, Germany has overtaken the US to become the Bangladesh’s largest RMG export market in the July-August period of the current fiscal year. RMG export to Germany in the first two months grew by 9.72 per cent to $992.39 million from $904.46 million in the same period of the FY17. Earnings from the readymade garment export to the US market in the first two months of the FY18 grew by 9.62 per cent to $990.81 million from $903.89 million in the same period of the FY17.
Source: http://www.newagebd.net/article/24213/rmg-export-shines-in-jul-aug-on-strong-euro
Rice prices have shot up by Tk10 per kilogram in Benapole allegedly following a rumour that Indian rice imports would be suspended for nearly a month and half. According to sources at Benapole port, Indian exporters sent an anonymous letter to several ports in Bangladesh on Wednesday which said that India will discontinue exporting rice to Bangladesh from September 15 till November 30. However, 100 truckloads of rice were still imported through the port last Friday. Benapole Customs Commissioner Shawkat Hossain Bhuiyan confirmed that the news about the import halt is fake. Bangladeshi importers have observed that Indian exporters might be involved in a conspiracy to create an artificial crisis so they can increase the value of Letter of Credit (LC). Though a class of businessmen are benefitting from the hike, low-income people are suffering, they added. Sources at the port have said the duty-free imported rice was being unloaded at the port. About 3,000 tons of rice was imported last week at the price of $535 per ton.
The National Board of Revenue has waived 15 per cent Value Added Tax (VAT) on import of iron and steel-made Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) cylinders. To this effect, the revenue board issued a Statutory Regulatory Order (SRO), dated September 12, by exempting VAT. VAT has been exempted following the request made by two local importers including Orion Gas Ltd to meet the growing demand for LP gas in the domestic market. VAT exemption will be applicable to the cylinders having the capacity below 5,000 litres.
Source: http://thefinancialexpress.com.bd/economy/import-vat-waiver-on-lpg-cylinders-1505559461
Bangladesh’s Petrobangla is in discussion with Indonesia’s Pertamina to import more than 1.0 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the state energy company as early as 2018, a Petrobangla official said on Friday. Bangladesh expects to sign its first ever LNG import deal in Qatar later this month to help cover a shortfall of domestic natural gas, underscoring the rise of South Asia as a new market for the fuel. Petrobangla is finalising several floating storage and regasification units, the first of which is expected to commence operations in April 2018, said Petrobangla chairman Abul Mansur Md Faizullah in Jakarta on Friday. The state company is in discussions with several potential LNG suppliers. “At present we’re with Pertamina. We haven’t decided it yet,” Faizullah told reporters, referring to the potential deal with Indonesia’s national oil and gas company. “The initial perception is it might be 1.0 million tonnes per year,” he said. Petrobangla is seeking about 7.0 million tones per year of LNG from next year from several sources, he said.
Five years after the roll-out of 3G network, Bangladesh is now all set to enter 4G era as the government has approved relevant guideline with spectrum prices, paving the way for the telecom regulator to stage an open auction at its earliest. Mohamamd Enayet Hossain, spokesman for the Posts and Telecommunications Division, told Xinhua on Thursday that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday approved the guideline for 4G or the fourth generation of mobile telecommunications technology, succeeding 3G. He said the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) will now hold an open auction to distribute spectrum by next two months. In line with the approved guideline, the floor price for each megahertz of spectrum in the 2,100 band has been set at 27 million US dollars and 30 million US dollars in the 900 and 1,800 bands.
Prices of rice and onion increased in the city’s kitchen markets over the week due to the monopoly of rice mill owners and wholesalers of essential commodities, retailers said. The prices of rice increased by BDT 8-10 a kg over the week in the city markets. The fine variety of Miniket rice was being sold at up to BDT 70 a kg while the coarse variety was selling at up to BDT 52 a kg. According to statistics of the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh, the prices of fine varieties of rice increased by BDT 8 a kg in last one week and were selling at BDT 66 a kg while the prices of coarse varieties of rice increased by BDT 5 a kg and were being retailed at BDT 50 a kg.
Source: http://www.newagebd.net/article/24139/prices-of-rice-onion-rise-further
| Index Name | Close Value | Value Change | Percentage Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| DSEX | 6,203.90 | ↑19.33 | ↑0.31% |
| DJIA | 22,268.34 | ↑64.86 | ↑0.29% |
| FTSE100 | 7,215.47 | ↓79.92 | ↓1.10% |
| Nikkei 225 | 19,909.50 | ↑102.06 | ↑0.52% |
| Commodity | Close Value | Value Change | Percentage Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crude Oil (WTI)* | $ 49.89 | ↑0.00 | ↑0.00 |
| Crude Oil (Brent)* | $ 55.62 | ↑0.15 | ↑0.27% |
| Gold Spot* | $ 1320.18 | ↓9.56 | ↓0.72% |
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