BB cautions SoCBs on classified loans

The central bank has asked four state-owned commercial banks (SoCBs) for taking effective measures so that rescheduled loans do not turn into classified ones, officials said Sunday. The instruction came at a meeting held at the Bangladesh Bank (BB) to...

HC starts hearing on long-pending writs

A High Court (HC) larger bench started hearing on about 100 long-pending writ petitions that challenged minimum 0.5 per cent income tax on the companies' annual 'gross receipts' irrespective of whether they made loss or profit, sources said. "Taking the...

Nat’l budget on June 5

The national budget for fiscal year (FY) 2014-15 is set to be placed before parliament on June 5 next. Finance Ministry officials Sunday confirmed the budget announcement date. The size of the budget for the upcoming fiscal year, as indicated...

MoC set to complete 29 RHD projects this year

The ministry of communication (MoC) is hopeful of completing 29 projects out of over 100 under its Road Division in the current fiscal year. Officials said the ministry has also set a target to complete 55 more projects in the...

How rational is relating tax to dividend payment?

The term 'dividend' in finance refers to distribution of profits by a company among its shareholders. The company may choose to pay cash to its shareholders out of profit earned by it during a year or profit previously earned but...

Double standard impedes education

Popular writer and distinguished teacher Jafar Iqbal has rightly made his feeling known about the general apathy towards the leakage of question papers. He is disappointed that the issue has not received due attention even from the media. As a...

Economics of slums

Slums are eyesores to every one except those who live there. In spite of being disliked by many they have become an integral part of urbanisation almost in all countries. They are a mirror image of societies where poverty is...

DSEX dips below 4,500-mark

Stocks witnessed sharp decline on Sunday with key index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) dipped below 4,500 points mark after 6 weeks as investors went for selling spree. The market started with a negative trend and the downturn continued...

Ukraine : Will \\\'referendum\\\' by pro-Russians take place?

 A last-ditch effort is in progress among the parties who have great stakes in the Ukraine crisis. The pro-Russian separatists are hell-bent in carrying forward the 'referendum' in several areas in eastern Ukraine for 'independence' from the 'Kiev' authority. The...

55,000 cars, jeeps with tinted glasses allowed to ply roads

Nearly 55,000 imported private cars and jeeps, having built-in black or tinted glasses from their manufacturing plants abroad, have been allowed to ply on roads although the Home Ministry had earlier ordered its removal to detect kidnappers and hostages. The...

Govt to press ahead with loss-making project

The much-talked-about water bus service around the city has now fallen flat as both its public and private operators do not find it financially viable. The operators said they never got the expected number of passengers enjoying the service over...

Motorcyclists hardly obey traffic rules

It is indeed alarming that more than one million motorcycles ply throughout the country without BRTA (Bangladesh Road Transport Authority) registration. Our correspondent Badrul Ahsan in an exclusive report published in The Financial Express on May 5 last quoted BRTA...

Philips to set up 30 sleep labs in Bangladesh

Philips looks to make a significant amount of in vestment in the field of country's healthcare solution to sleep disorder, which causes poor performance at the workplaces and even different serious diseases. Under the plan, the company will set up...

Impossible to turn eyes away from you, oh mom!

Today, May 11, is Mother's Day. For many of us, who have lost their mothers, Mother's Day is a painful reminder. Over and over, it's a screaming reminder of loss. I was looking for ways on this 'day of mother'...

Raising exports to spur economic growth

Bangladesh's economy has achieved an average growth of 6.0 per cent over the last five years primarily due to the healthy inflow of remittance and rising exports. Both the exports and the remittance flow from expatriate Bangladeshis have doubled over...

The Cs of good and bad loans

One well-known principle for evaluation of a credit proposal is five 'C's of credit--character, capacity, conditions, capital, and collateral. This article recapitulates those five 'C's and also tries to introduce a new dimension to the evaluation process by introducing what...

Investment versus economic growth

Investment, one of the key drivers of economic development, has been defined as 'net addition to the existing stock of capital'. Capital is a combination of capital machinery, buildings and transports used for the purpose of production. These elements of...

Nobel economists, others urge end to \\\'war on drugs\\\'

Global efforts to thwart the drugs trade have failed and the time has come for a radical rethink, according to a group of Nobel-prize winning economists, a former U.S secretary of state, the deputy prime minister of Britain and others....

Baltics can keep lights on if Russia turns off the gas

Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia depend on Russia for all their gas imports, but they each have defences in place to ensure sufficient energy supplies if Moscow cuts off gas exports in an escalation of the Ukraine crisis. Russia's Gazprom has...

Making education attractive to slum and working children

Bangladesh has made remarkable progress in creating access to and achieving gender parity in primary education. According to the MDG progress report 2012, the country is about to achieve the goal of universal primary education for all. The net enrollment...

Intake rules at public universities need review

Public universities in developing countries play an important role in empowering the citizens through various means. Like in other such countries, the public universities have been shaping the middle class of Bangladesh since earlier decades of the last century. Dhaka...

Efforts on to implement Padma Barrage project

Water resources officials are accelerating efforts at the top level over executing the Padma Barrage project to save some 21 south-west districts of the country from water crisis and salinity. Sources in the Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) said the...

Breakthrough in Chinese funding for deep-sea port in the offing

Chinese funding for construction of a deep-sea port in Bangladesh may see a breakthrough soon as Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is going to visit Beijing next month, officials say. A meeting at the ministry of foreign affairs last week took...

BTB set to get fewer staff than sought

Bangladesh Tourism Board (BTB) is going to get one fourth of its workforce it sought under the board's new organogram to be effective from the upcoming financial year, officials said. The new organogram along with BTB service rules is now...

Bangladesh needs priority-driven budget

In addition to traditional administrative responsibilities, the government of a country has numerous plans and policies to meet the objectives of social development and economic growth. For implementing the policies, the government has to spend huge funds on administration, defence,...

People seek more shelters during cyclone in Khulna

People in the disaster-prone areas of Khulna are keeping their fingers crossed about their safety in case a hurricane or cyclone lashes those places. Shelters are inadequate. Even most of the existing shelters are in a dilapidated condition because of...

FDI and economic growth

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is actually transfer of capital from a source country to a host country. It is done in order to earn more revenue by grabbing the facilities offered by the host country. The surplus capital of any...

Corporate income tax: Should it be reduced or not?

One of the first lessons taught in Economics is to distinguish between a positive and normative statement. The example of a positive statement would be, 'the temperature today is 30 degree Celsius', and the example of a normative statement would...

Rivers of Bangladesh

Bangladesh is a riverine country. About 800 rivers including tributaries flow through the country constituting a waterway of total length around 24,140 km. Most of the country's land is formed through silt brought by the rivers. The rivers of Bangladesh...

The moral standard of Islamic banking

The history of banking is as old as the human civilisation. But the modern banking system flourished in Europe after the Renaissance and expanded across the globe including the Muslim world just after the political victory achieved in Europe. At...