News Briefs(27-2-2019)

BSTI finds bottled water of 10 cos substandard

Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI) in a report submitted before the High Court on Tuesday said the agency has found bottled water marketed by 10 companies substandard and scrapped the licences of three of those. The report was produced before a High Court division bench comprising Justice Sheikh Hassan Arif and Justice Razik-Al-Jalil. BSTI in the report said in its operations conducted from January 1, 2019 to February 18, it has found drinking water marketed by 10 authorised companies substandard. "We asked them to show causes. After receiving our letter, seven of the companies gave explanations while three of them remained mum. As a result, we scrapped licences of those three companies and stayed licences of the rest seven for different period of time," the report said. The three companies are Ananda Plus, Real First and Best One. The brands, which were suspended for different terms, are Canny (jar), Aqua Mineral (small bottle), Alma (small bottle), CFB (jar), Osma (jar), Epic (jar) and Yummy Yammy (pet bottle). The High Court on December 3, 2018, asked authorities concerned to stop supplying and marketing of substandard and unsafe bottled water. After that order BSTI in its first report on January 21, found bottled water marketed by five companies substandard. It is the second such report.

— BSS

Netherlands key market for RMG: Tipu

Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi on Tuesday said the Netherlands is an important market for Bangladeshi readymade garments (RMG). He said this during a meeting with the Netherlands Ambassador to Bangladesh Harry Verweij at his secretariat office. He said the RMG factories have been modernised along with wage hike of labourers which required huge investment, but price of RMG did not increase in line with it. "So, fixing up the logical price of RMG is necessary," he added. In the last fiscal, Bangladesh's exports to the market stood at US$ 1,205 million against its imports $ 231.45 million. Commerce secretary Mofizul Islam and additional secretary Tapan Kanti Ghosh were present.

— BSS