NBR to cross-check tax, VAT info

Wealth statements, furnished by taxpayers in their income tax and VAT returns, will be cross-checked from now on to detect possible tax evasion, according to a recent decision of the National Board of Revenue (NBR). The NBR's Income Tax and...

Action plan underway to boost exports of farm produce

The government has decided to prepare an action plan with a view to boosting outbound shipments of the country's agricultural products, officials said.It had already initiated a move to form national committee, steering committee and subcommittee to make ready the...

Ctg WASA per day water supply to reach 500m ltrs

CHATTOGRAM, March 05: Chattogram WASA is going to supply a total of 500 million liters of water per day from the current month as the second project of Sheikh Hasina Water Treatment Plant is likely to be inaugurated by the...

Push for making first-party insurance mandatory

The country's insurers requested a move from the regulator to make the first-party motor vehicle comprehensive insurance mandatory.They sought efforts by insurance regulator, insurers' association, road transport agency and the police to fix complexities that arose from the recent abolishment...

Stocks snap six-week losing streak

Stocks rebounded strongly in the outgoing week, snapping a six-week losing streak, as optimistic investors showed their buying interest on lucrative issues.Week-on-week, the DSEX, the core index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), went up by 99.39 points or 1.84...

The plight of ragpickers and social indifference

The city's ragpickers are both a miserable and queer lot. Miserable, because the trash they collect are not only worthless in terms of economic value but also carry in most cases the risk of infecting them with diseases. The least...

Why C-section deliveries on the rise?

Caesarean delivery (C-section), a major surgical procedure to deliver a baby through incisions, has become increasingly common in developing countries like Bangladesh. The 2017-2018 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey data reported the C-section delivery rate to be 33 per cent...

University students deserve better facilities

For urban middle-class students of the University of Dhaka, the pandemic-induced closure has largely been an extended vacation. It was competely different for residential students.Many of them faced great financial trouble at the beginning of the pandemic. At that point...

Rocky road before Burmese people

Gradually the Burmese military has started to bare its fangs as the civil disobedience movement against its seizure of power by force has been showing no sign of calming down. Such behaviour of the Burmese people who had seen more...

Imports from ACU states up by 11pc in Jan-Feb

Imports from the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) member countries increased by more than 11 per cent in the January-February period of this calendar year, officials said.The amount of ACU payment rose to US$1.42 billion during the period of 2021 from...

MRT-1 construction work likely to start early next year

The construction work of metro rail from Airport Station to Kamalapur Station is likely to start early next year, amid challenges of completing the utility shifting work and finalising the detailed design.Sources said Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited (DMTCL) has...

Stock mkt tribunal out of work

A special tribunal created only to deal with stock market-related cases is having an idle time since it does not have any work to do, according to tribunal sources. The situation has been more or less the same for the...

Is food security under threat?

Bangladesh, after many years, is not in the comfort zone as far as the food security issue is concerned.A recent report of the Global Agricultural Information network of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has predicted a notable increase...

Let transition to the stage of developing nation be inclusive

The United Nations Committee for Development Policy recommends on February 27 that Bangladesh be formally recognised as a developing nation in 2026. Had there been no pandemic, the formal transition would have taken place two years earlier in 2024. Coming...

Health awareness among female RMG workers

There are currently around 4,500 registered factories under the Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA). About 4.20 million women work at these ready-made garments (RMG) factories accounting for over 60 percent of the total workforce. Most of these women...

Nat'l body meet fails to reach consensus

A meeting of the national price monitoring and fixing committee under the Bangladesh Trade and Tariff Commission (BTTC) on Wednesday could not come to a consensus on a proposal of price hike of soybean oil. The meeting was held at...

Tax receipts from DSE double in 8 months

The government's revenue earnings from the prime bourse marked a whopping 101 per cent rise in the first eight months of the current fiscal year (FY) compared to the same period of the previous fiscal amid rising trading volume.Market insiders...

English language festival for youths

Amidst every uncertainty brought by the pandemic, young enthusiasts continue to bloom like flowers by engaging themselves in the blessings of the virtual world. To serve these ingenious minds with linguistic and analytical battle, Holy Cross College English Language Club...

Financing shipbuilding

Shipbuilding, which dates back to the pre-historic era, was financed by the community, not in terms of money alone but through resources and labour. The most formidable and ancient floats were built by old fallen logs fastened together by twiners--...

LDC graduation and after

It was a forgone conclusion that Bangladesh would graduate out of least developed countries (LDC) after the remaining formality was completed in February this year. Now that the official confirmation in this regard has been made by the UN Committee...

Middlemen blunt tax waiver impact

Benefits of tax exemptions on essential commodities hardly reach the end-users as international price fluctuations, hoarding, production and availability of products work as major deterrents.Officials at the National Board of Revenue (NBR) have said they are losing a significant amount...

Coups d'etat: The familiar tales we remember

The Myanmar envoy to the United Nations, Kyaw Moe Tun, has publicly denounced the coup d'etat in his country and has asked the global body and its member-states to take action against the military leaders who have deposed the elected...

MoF proposes further cut in duty on rice

The Ministry of Food has proposed cutting the import duty on rice further by 10 per cent to 15 per cent with a view to encouraging traders to import the staple in higher volume, sources said.The move for slashing import...

Capital base of banks improves marginally

The capital base of the country's banks has improved marginally in 2020 mainly due to the 'decline' in the volume of their non-performing loans (NPLs), officials said.The capital-to-risk weighted-asset ratio (CRAR) of all the scheduled banks rose to 11.64 per...

DVS helps NBR bring huge number of companies under tax net

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh (ICAB) has made a move to reshuffle and revitalize its vigilant system on the chartered accountant firms to make them more compliant and bring in high-quality financial reports.The national accounting and auditing regulator,...

BD external sector performance: A tale of multiple narratives

From the perspectives of turnaround, rebound and recovery, the Bangladesh external sector performance evinces a mixed picture as one traces the developments from the vantage point of February 2021. One recalls that both exports and imports were under pressure even...

Toxic contents on internet

A recent study based on a survey conducted by a legal aid and pro-rights body, 'Ain O Shalish Kendra (ASK), says that 64 per cent of the children it surveyed have their own mobile phones. As told by the posts...

National Insurance Day marks 'great expectations'

Optimistically enough we are celebrating the 2nd National Insurance Day today. In order to reaffirm the purposes of insurance in our social and economic lifecycle, the government introduced such an energizing event, the first of its kind, back in 2020.To...

Tapping potentials of insurance for UHC

Bangladesh Insurance Industry has unlimited possibilities for development and protection. The role of insurance in managing the risks in an economy is an important one as far as growth and prosperity are concerned. In a micro-economic perspective on the one...

MNOs can't import, install DWDM for leased network

Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) will no longer be able to import and install dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) equipment for the fiber optic network, leased from National Telecommunication Transmission Networks (NTTNs) or other entities.The decision was taken at 245th commission...