sports digest

Beijing GamesJINGDONG, China, July 8: Sporting skimpy outfits and glistening smiles, the Chinese women dancing here could be cheerleaders for any US sports team. Only the colourful fans and "nunchakus" chain sticks give them away. One month before the Beijing...

Striving for ideal in business practice

CORPORATISM in business and industry is not a new idea. It has been in practice in the West for over a century. However, in our own context of business culture, it is being talked about as if as part of...

China and India knock on G-8's door

It is time for Canada to be ejected from the Group of Eight (G-8), Bill Emmott, former editor of the Economist, mischievously suggests in his recent book. That would help make room for Asia's two emerging giants, without whom, he...

To borrow or not to borrow

QUIET as a sleeping mouse you are purring with pleasure by defaulting on a loan, while the lender, tirelessly chasing you as an agitated cat, is in default of his sleep. Meanwhile, interests on the unpaid loan are silently and...

Well deserved support for SMEs

THE small and medium enterprises (SMEs) ideally meet the employment strategy in Bangladesh where capital intensive large enterprises would create employment for a lesser number of people. The SMEs, by contrast, being labour intensive can be employ a greater number...

Dialogue without Consensus

The caretaker government is holding talks with the political parties, civil society, business community and other stakeholders. Talks have so far been held with some of the stakeholders who have put forward a number of demands. It is pointed out...

Concern over future growth of garment sector

Garment manufacturers have expressed their doubt about whether or not they will be able to maintain the current extraordinary export growth in the new fiscal in the face of external and domestic odds.The sector grew around 16 per cent to...

RAB intelligence identifies 25 spurious drug producing cos

The government has identified, at least, 25 pharmaceutical companies allegedly involved in production of substandard and spurious medicines.Lists of those companies have been sent to the Drug Administration for taking stern action after conducting investigation, officials said.Presently, around 164 out...

Bank leaders in the UK are a disgrace to capitalism

IF you want to get a British entrepreneur worked up, one topic is bound to raise their temperature to boiling point: the behaviour of the clearing banks.To ordinary business owners, it appears as if these organisations are the institutional equivalent...

sports digest

ever triumph: RafaLONDON, July 7: Newly-crowned Wimbledon champion Rafael Nadal savoured his greatest ever victory but insisted that dethroned All England Club king Roger Federer was still the best player in the world. Nadal shattered Federer's dream of a record...

Fertilisers-costlier yet indispensable

It seems that the sky is the limit for the ongoing bout of fuel price increase. Some market analysts say that the price might soar to US dollar 200 a barrel within this year. Nobody knows what would happen next....

The challenge of reviving the jute industry

BANGLADESH faces the challenge of reviving its jute industry. Strangely though as the jute mills in Bangladesh was closed down one after another, new jute mills, almost in the same numbers, was set up across the border.The government needs to...

Businesses seek more time

The move by the National Board of Revenue (NBR) to install electronic cash registers (ECRs) at shops and service providers from the first day of the next calendar year (2009) to help check value added tax (VAT) evasion is facing...

Gas supply shortage hits fertiliser production

Insufficient gas supply has been adversely affecting fertiliser production in the state-run factories during the past one week, said officials Sunday.They said inadequate gas supply has resulted in a decline in the production which was reduced by 10-20 per cent...

IMF warns of threat to poorer nations

FT Syndication ServiceLONDON: The rise in food and oil prices could "severely weaken" the economies of up to 75 developing countries, including Pakistan and Indonesia, the International Monetary Fund said in its first broad assessment of the crisis.Dominique Strauss-Kahn, IMF...

HC issues stay order against SEC directive on recasting Z-category cos

The High Court issued a three-month stay order against a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) directive on recasting the board of directors of Z-category companies which expired June 3 last.It also asked the commission to reply within four weeks as...

The need for alternative of oil

EVER since man discovered oil as a source of energy, the importance of and the demand for oil has only increased. The emergence of oil not only saw the gradual demise of the 'coal age', but its effectiveness as a...

Inflation puts pressure on emerging economies

THE emerging economies, for so long the success story of the markets, have suffered a jolt this year.Until the start of 2008, they had outperformed US and European markets amid talk that they had decoupled from the main western economies,...

corporatewatch

Mercantile Bank: Toufique Rahman Chowdhury, Khurshida Ahmed and MS Ahsan, all sponsors of the bank, have reported that they have completed their sale/buy of 10,000 shares, 5,000 shares and 15,000 shares respectively of the bank at the prevailing market price...

Learning English and CLT approach: A Bangladeshi perspective

AT present English has become the common language of the world. It has become the working language of almost a quarter of the global population. Most of the international trade and commerce, scientific research, publication, interrelation, higher studies are based...

Ranks of the unemployed are swelling

There were no good tidings on the economic front to greet the Americans on the Independence day. The economy is becoming gloomier by the day. The other crucial player in the global economy, the European Union (EU), did not have...

Egg prices jump

Egg prices in Dhaka retail markets jumped by Tk 19-Tk 20 per dozen Saturday, following supply shortage as some of the larger poultry farms are not being able to produce enough to meet the demand, an industry official said.According to...

About reforms of TPOs

THE role of Trade Promotion Organizations (TPOs) in a country for pursuing private sector led economic growth cannot be ignored if the government of the day really means business. Its the bounden responsibility of the TPOs to put forward their...

Implications of reducing subsidies

EVEN well before the present upsurge in the oil price when it was substantially lower, the costs of subsidies to be borne by the government in financial year 2007-08 from buying oil at international prices and then marketing it within...

Some banks resort to aggressive banking to hide NPL situation

The excess liquidity in the banking sector has fallen by Tk 14.56 billion, or 13.49 per cent, to Tk 93.37 billion over a period of past four months, ending on April 30, 2008, due to higher credit growth particularly in...

Creating resolve for the triumph of the good

IT may be asked whether Bangladeshis, having successfully applied their political consciousness to establish Bangladesh, have been equally successful in using the same consciousness to develop their country in the economic and social sense. The well researched answer to such...

Search for the beauty in physical laws

From the philosophers of antiquity to the theological school of the Middle Ages to the modern theorists working at the edge of scientific research had only one thought in their minds-to provide a contradiction-free and consistent explanation of the world.The...

Back to politics as usual

In January--a political lifetime ago--there were two presidential candidates who scored above the rest on the matter of authenticity: Barack Obama and John McCain. Indeed, 65 percent of Democrats thought that Obama says "what he believes most of the time,"...

Global economy reeling under twin strains

NEW YORK, July 2: It is widely acknowledged now that the global economy is reeling under the twin strains of acute food shortage and soaring price of oil. The debacle in America's subprime lending has added to the woes. Or...

Titas stock bids go dry

The state-run gas distribution company Titas failed to sell any single share of it on its debut trading day as it ignored the best prices offered by the investors causing resentment among them.This is the first ever incident in the...