‘It is a positive sign that Bangladesh’s global market share increased, but the question is how much we reaped profit or if there is profit’ Bangladesh’s share of the global clothing market rose again in 2016 as the country sealed its place as the second largest exporter of apparel products – despite sluggish export growth […]

Banks have rescheduled loans amounting to about Tk 70,400 crore of troubled borrowers over the last five years, putting extra pressure on the sector. “The rescheduling of loans has created extra stress on the banking system in recent times as this constitutes a significant part of the banks’ total loan portfolio,” said the central bank’s […]

The gap between buying and selling rates for US dollar has recently widened to Tk 1.50 from Tk 1, in a development that has made imports costlier and can go on to create inflationary pressure and squeeze the foreign exchange reserves. For years, the gap has been Tk 1 a dollar as per the instruction […]

Soaring paddy prices, high import cost and lack of market monitoring may drive the rice price in the local market high, traders have hinted. Rice prices dropped a little following an import glut a month ago, but are yet to be within the reach of the middle-income group. However, the prices of Bangladesh’s staple rose […]

Bangladesh Bank governor Fazle Kabir speaks while unveiling the monetary policy for July-December at the central bank headquarters in Dhaka on Wednesday. — New Age photo Bangladesh Bank has lowered private sector credit growth target to 16.20 per cent, which has maintained an upward trend in recent months, in the monetary policy statement for July-December […]

Suspicious transaction reports submitted by reporting agencies including banks and non-bank financial institutions increased by 54.20 per cent to 1,687 in the fiscal year 2015-16 from 1,094 in the FY 2014-15, according to a Bangladesh Bank report to be released soon. The STRs submitted by the reporting agencies in FY16 contained a total of 31,785 […]

Five top businesses that received special loan restructure facilities, have fallen into default again. Instead of paying the installments of their defaulted loans, they are now seeking fresh loans and interest exemption. A total of Tk 150 billion in loans of ten top businesses were restructured on the excuse of political instability in 2015. Five […]

Standard Chartered and City Bank are set to organise a day-long symposium in China next month with a view to attracting foreign direct investment, much needed as Bangladesh looks to scale up its economy. “Now is a good time to make investment in Bangladesh,” said Lin Weiqiang, president of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in […]

Garment exports to India declined in fiscal 2016-17 thanks to 12.5 percent countervailing duty by the neighbour, which negates the benefit of duty-free access, and the emergence of its own apparel manufacturing industry. Last fiscal year, garment shipments to India, a market of more than $40 billion, fetched $129.81 million, down 4.85 percent year-on-year. The […]

Farmers are set to get better quality jute this harvesting season as water availability from increased rainfall will facilitate proper retting, said agriculturists and jute industry executives. Retting is the process of extracting fibres from tied bundles of jute stalks. There are four available retting processes and one of them is the water or microbial […]

A file photo shows workers sewing clothes at a readymade garment factory in Dhaka. Bangladesh has slipped to the 7th position from the 5th as an apparel sourcing destination for the United States as US fashion companies deem Bangladesh risky in terms of trade compliance, according to the US Fashion Industry Benchmarking Study revealed on […]

Private mobile operators are seeing no way of getting back within the first three years a “substantial” return of the over Tk 22,600 crore they will need to invest to roll out 4G services in Bangladesh. And their estimate has not even taken into account the spectrum charge. They say high spectrum charges and tax […]