Women entrepreneurs may face setback due to virus pandemic

Women entrepreneurs are likely to face major hit in their businesses centring coronavirus pandemic in the country due to lack of adequate back up strength as they have already missed major business seasons of the year.In absence of adequate backup,...

Pvt sector faces five key challenges: USAID

The United States Agency for International Development has identified five key challenges facing the private sector in the expansion of clean energy in Bangladesh.The challenges are: lack of strategic direction, failure of early unsolicited utility-scale solar projects, lack of proper...

How to design a lockdown

As governments introduce social-distancing rules of varying strictness to combat the Covid-19 pandemic, the question of how long these measures should remain in place will likely spark vigorous debate. Many economists and psychologists will warn that a lengthy period of...

Demography-driven transformation

Other things remaining the same, it is assumed that the welfare of a household depends on the number of members it has to feed --- a reduction in the household size signals to a rise in living standard of the...

Internet-based educational technologies for students

When educational institutions around the world are closed as a precaution against the Coronavirus (COVID-19), Bangladesh also had to take the same decision. Although the government has found a way of teaching students of government schools (class VI to X)-broadcasting...

Tackling climate change with Covid-19 urgency

In recent weeks, the world has been focused on urgently battling the fast-evolving Covid-19 pandemic. The World Health Organisation (WHO), governments, and central banks have acted rapidly to mitigate the virus's impact, while scientists, policymakers, and public-health experts are sharing...

Container congestion likely to hamper port operations

CHATTOGRAM, April 02: Container congestion at Chattogram seaport may hamper overall port operations soon as imported cargoes cannot be delivered within schedule.Restrictions on the movement of container carriers, lorries, covered vans and trucks have made the delivery of containers very...

Process underway to change asset manager of two MFs

The Bangladesh General Insurance Company (BGIC), the trustee of Green Delta Mutual Fund and the DBH 1st Mutual Fund, has appointed an auditor to complete the process of changing the asset manager of the two mutual funds (MFs). These two...

Lockdown hitting telcos hard

The countrywide lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic is taking its toll on local telecom sector, as most of the mobile phone top-up stores are closed during the critical situation. According to the data of Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of...

Making best use of lockdown period

The coronavirus has brought all -- from kings to commoners -- to their knees. What is happening right at this moment across the world is both unbelievable and dreadful. All the medical advancements that the modern world has made over...

Coordinated food distribution maintaining social distance

Pictures of distribution of victuals among the needy continue to splash pages of newspapers. Alongside government functionaries, city corporations and celebrities, individuals, small organisations and nameless groups have also come forward to feed the hungry mouths whose meagre sources of...

Humanity at a crossroads

As the epicentre of the Covid-19 pandemic shifts from China to the developed West, all too many rich countries are acting selfishly, invoking the 'national interest', by banning exports of vital medical supplies. US President Donald Trump has reportedly gone...

Remembering Justice Murshed -

Poet Alfred Tennyson composed his famous "In Memoriam" after the demise of his intimate friend Arthur Hallam. Syed Mahbub Murshed's achievements warrant a comparable "In Memoriam", but we are without the illustrious talent of Tennyson. Justice S M Murshed was...

Of viruses, virology and novel corona

Lying somewhere between the living and non-living, the organic and inorganic, viruses have a strange propensity to kill their host cells. In fact, they cannot survive or multiply without a host, and their demise becomes only a matter of hours...

Single-digit interest rate in vogue

Country's commercial banks started implementation of 9.0 per cent interest rate on all loans except credit cards as part of the government initiative of brining down the rate to single digit from Wednesday.The banks particularly private commercial ones have already...

Corona hits work on mega projects

Mega ongoing projects like Padma Bridge, metro rail and Matarbari power plant have hit speed bumps as local employees have left the sites in fear of coronavirus.Some areas, including Padma Bridge and Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport Third Terminal projects, are...

Trading on DSE mobile app soars despite bearish mkt

Share trading through DSE mobile app continued to rise on the Dhaka Stock Exchange as the number of active users of the digital application exceeded 53000-mark.The number of active users of the application increased to 53,254 as of March 25...

The Covid-19 solidarity test

The COVID-19 crisis represents an unprecedented test of human solidarity. Will the wealthy - or, indeed, all those with stable incomes or savings cushions - embrace measures to support the poor and economically insecure? Will the young, among whom the...

Need for a bold approach

The global economic crisis induced by the spread of Covid-19 is getting deeper and deeper. The situation in Bangladesh is no exception. In my earlier post on the subject (FE, March 23, 2020), I had mentioned that the impact of...

Money mkt operation to continue on holidays

The central bank has decided to keep open the operation of inter-bank call money market and repurchase agreement on a limited scale aiming to minimise possible liquidity risks during the ongoing general holidays."We're ready to provide liquidity support to banks...

40 cos to go public to raise Tk 30 billion

Some 40 companies will raise an aggregate amount of capital worth around Tk 30 billion from the country's capital markets.The companies have intended to raise the capital floating IPOs (initial public offerings) under the book building and fixed price method...

Gender plans and strategies need to be realigned with SDGs

Bangladesh is the seventh-most climate-affected country in the world, according to the Global Climate Risk Index 2020. Climate change manifests itself through various ways - though it is largely felt through water. Bangladesh has abundance of water with around 24,000...

Capitalism's triple crisis: Entrepreneurial states desperately needed

Capitalism is facing at least three major crises. A pandemic-induced health crisis has rapidly ignited an economic crisis with yet unknown consequences for financial stability, and all of this is playing out against the backdrop of a climate crisis that...

Corona to climate change management

Some people are saying, and I agree, that Covid-19 may have shown a silver lining amidst large-scale deaths and health and economic damages and costs, that it is possible to bring back the integrity of the natural environment through human...

Steady growth in EPS of ACME Laboratories in last five years

The ACME Laboratories registered a steady growth in EPS (earnings per share) during the last five fiscal years riding on increased revenue earnings realised during the period.The 'A' category company reported its EPS of Tk 6.81 for the year ended...

DSE new index falls 12pc in Q1 amid virus scare

The newly-introduced 'CNI-DSE Select Index (CDSET)', comprising well performing companies, tumbled 12 per cent in the just three months amid virus outbreak.The Dhaka Stock Exchange launched the index on January 1 this year as part of the business and technical...

Carew's sanitiser output increases

The state-run Carew & Company (Bangladesh) Ltd has increased production of hand sanitiser following its growing demand in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak.The lone state distiller started producing the disinfectant since March 23 recognising its need to save people...

RHD to settle claims through third party

The Roads and Highways Department (RHD) has started the process of settling the Tk 5.0-billion claims of Japanese contractors through a third-party opinion.The builders worked on a big project to construct three major bridges and rehabilitate the existing ones on...

When the Fed Chair talks everyone listens

If you watch the dynamics of a near perfectly competitive free market (stock market), a monopolistically competitive market (oil market) or a government regulated bond market and you have some semblance of economic literacy, you can make a diagnosis of...

The need of the hour

The corona virus disease (COVID-19) situation has come to such a pretty pass that no continent on earth could escape the assault of this speedily transmitted virus except the remote frozen continent of Antarctica.Among the South Asian countries, nay in...