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The reduction in the import duty on 3,352 items is unlikely to contain the price spiral of essential commodities, and will instead put further strain on the foreign exchange reserve as it will trigger an import surge, fear economists and chamber leaders.
   They said the move might bring some good news for the industrial sector but suggested nevertheless that the government should impose a letter-of-credit margin and take action against hoarders if it wanted to protect consumers’ interest and maintain a healthy forex reserve.
   They also said the government should bid the multilateral lending agencies goodbye and formulate economic policies on its own.
   The National Board of Revenue on Tuesday slashed import duty on 3,352 items of agricultural, luxury and finished products, and industrial raw materials by 1.5–2 per cent through a statutory regulatory order.
   The finance and planning minister, M Saifur Rahman, later told journalists that the decision to slash duty had been taken to ease the plight of the consumers and taking into consideration the recent devaluation of taka against dollar.
   Zaid Bakht, research director of the Bangladesh Institute of development Studies, doubted that the tax measure would help lessen the price burden of consumers and said it would surely put further strain on the forex reserve through a surge in import.
   ‘I have doubts about the assumption that the consumers would be benefited by the duty cut,’ he told New Age. ‘Import would be encouraged to a great extent because of the duty cut and put further pressure on the forex reserve,’
   He suggested that government should immediately impose an L/C margin, brushing aside the recommendations of the International Monetary Fund, and try to ease pressure both on the forex reserve and the consumers.
   ‘At the insistence of the World Bank, the government reduced the import duty on items that include luxury products and foreign fruits,’ he said.
   Zaid said the move was apparently good for industrialisation but warned that such a move would only contribute to the effective rate of protection, which is not consistent with the concept of open economic policy. ‘One should reduce import duty from all import slabs to contain the effective rate of protection.’
   ‘The government should undertake policies to contain depreciation of taka by itself,’ he said. ‘It will be wise for the democratic government to formulate its economic policies on its own and say goodbye to multilateral lenders like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.’
   Professor Mustafizur Rahman, research director of the Centre for Policy Dialogue, said the government had reduced the import duty at the insistence of the World Bank as a crisis-management measure.
   The measure is, however, unlikely to arrest either the devaluation of taka or the price spiral of essential commodities, he said.
   A number of finished products will also get the benefit of the tax cut, he pointed out.
   ‘The measures instead may trigger a fresh surge in import,’ Mustafiz told New Age. ‘The finance and planning minister has increased the bank rates on one hand and reduced the import duty on other to ease the devaluation problem. The steps are contradictory.’
   Tapan Chowdhury, a leading industrialist and former president of the Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told New Age that the tax measure was a good initiative for industrialisation to some extent but would set a bad precedent.
   ‘The finance and planning minister had himself been against issuing any statutory regulatory order in the middle of a fiscal year as such a practice is considered as deterrent to long-term business plan,’ he said. ‘Any import duty cut in the middle of a fiscal year only gives the legal basis for a future hike of import duty.’
   Tapan said the tax measure alone was not sufficient to contain the price spiral of essential commodities. ‘The tax measures would be futile until and unless the government takes stern action against hoarders. The business community as a whole should not be blamed for hoarding.’
   He termed the decision as ‘positive overall’ and the Bangladesh Bank to come up with a concrete solution to the ongoing crises of hard currency.
   AK Azad, president of the Bangladesh Chamber of Industries, told New Age that the tax measures would not bring any substantial change to the plight of the consumers until and unless the central bank played an effective role to contain the devaluation of taka against dollar.
   ‘We strongly believe that the duty cut will contribute little to industrialisation and also fail to ease the devaluation problem,’ he said. ‘It is the government that has to take stern action against widespread siphoning off currency by hundi operators to ease the dollar crisis and against hoarders for the benefit of both itself and consumers.’
   ‘It is our demand to re-fix the import duty for raw materials at two per cent,’ he added.

The Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry elected three top leaders uncontested Thursday, as the electoral rubberstamped a pre-set panel claimed to be based on consensus.
   Mir Nasir Hossain was elected president while Mohammed Ali and Dewan Sultan Ahmed became the first and second vice president respectively in the polls and second vice-presidents to lead the country’s apex trade body for the next two-year term.
   The much-discussed FBCCI poll, which went through a complicated legal battle over the nomination process,
   virtually reduced to a compromise formula brokered by business bigwigs with political backups.
   The FBCCI president-elect, Mir Nasir, in an immediate reaction pledged to develop institutional capacity of the federation to cater to the private sector’s needs.
   While taking efforts to properly integrate the country’s business into the global trade regime, the apex trade body would have special focus on small and medium enterprises, the prime movers of the country’s economy, he said.
   A nominee from Faridpur chamber, Nasir has been active in trade body politics for long. He has business in construction as well as cement and tiles manufacturing.
   He expressed worries on Wednesday’s countywide bomb blasts and at the same time denounced the Saturday’s hartal called by opposition parties in protest against the series of blowouts.
   ‘Who will be affected by hartal? Hartal can never be a solution,’ he said.
   He was also critical of the culture of confrontational politics, which, he felt, would hit a blow to the growth of the country’s trade and industry.
   Twenty-four directors were elected ‘uncontested’ on Tuesday to join 14 others earlier nominated directly to form a 38-member electorate, which put the seal of approval on the ‘consensus’ panel on Thursday.
   The approval ends the dramatic process of the apex trade body’s poll that encountered a number of legal suits over disputed nominations.
   The election was once rescheduled, but a court order again put it back on track.
   The formal election process of there top leaders started in late afternoon on Thursday.
   A total of 35 directors attended the first meeting of the electorate with election board chairman M Anisuzzaman presiding over.
   The rest three directors could not attend as they were out of the country as the prime minister’s entourage.
   FBCCI sources said Mir Nasir and Mohammad Ali got elected unopposed as president and the first vice president.
   Dewan Sultan Ahmed of the Lakshmipur chamber also declared unopposed as the second vice-president after Bazlur Rahman of the Narayanganj left the race at the last moment.
   FBCCI officials said Mir Nasir will take charge from the outgoing president at the annual general meeting scheduled in the second week of September.

The commerce minister, Altaf Hossain Chowdhury, Thursday said the country’s export has long been facing serious setback due to improper packaging of commodities.
   ‘Deplorable packaging of our export products very often create problem in airlines,’ he said adding that Bangladesh produces huge quantity of fruits, vegetables and flower for which standard packaging is a must to avoid hazards during export.
   Altaf was addressing a conference titled ‘Increasing market share by using value added technologies in packaging production’ organised jointly by the Indian Institute of Packaging (IIP), the Bangladesh Corrugated Carton and Accessories Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BCCAMEA) and the Print Packaging.com Private Limited of India at a city hotel.
   Professor of IIP AA Joshi, president of Print Packaging.com Private Limited of India Anil Arora and BCCAMEA president Saifullah Chowdhury also addressed the conference.
   The commerce minister said the government has been giving importance to the export of various agricultural products for which packaging techniques are to be developed and standardised.
   He hoped that the conference would provide opportunities for Bangladeshi entrepreneurs to know about the latest technological developments in India and the rest of the world, especially in the field of flex printing, packaging, converting and corrugated box making.
   ‘The packaging and accessories sector of our country has been playing a vital role as backward linkage sector for our export-oriented readymade garments industry,’ Altaf said. ‘We need to give proper attention to packaging of products for the local market too,’ he added
   MCCAMEA president Saifullah Chowdhury said Bangladesh now save a huge amount of foreign exchange because almost the entire packaging requirements of export-oriented industries were being met by the local industries.
   ‘Now our export-oriented carton sector employs more than a hundred thousand workers and the investment in this sector is more than Tk 2,000 crore,’ he said.
   He informed that the export-oriented carton and accessories sector of the country earns approximately Tk 5,000 crore a year by providing carton and accessories items to the export-oriented industries.
   After the conference, the minister opened a daylong Indian Package Catalogue Show at the same venue. He also went round the exhibition site.
   Some 20 Indian packaging companies were displaying their product samples and catalogues at the show.

Steel and re-rolling mills operators on Thursday urged the government to resolve their problems regarding electricity supply and import of raw materials.
   Addressing a joint press conference at the Re-rolling Mills Owners’ Association office, they said the mills were facing serious problems in the production due to frequent power ourtage.
   ‘Irrational duties on import of raw materials as well as failure of the PSI companies to properly inspect the shipment of raw materials are causing huge damage to our business,’ said the steel and re-rolling mills’ operators.
   They, however, suspended the proposed indefinite strike programme at their mills that was scheduled to begin from August 20.
   The owners said the proposed shutdown has been postponed considering the present law and order situation in the wake of the countrywide serial bomb blasts on Wednesday.
   Bangladesh Re-rolling Mills Association and the Bangladesh Steel Mill Owners Association jointly organised the press conference.
   Re-rolling Mills Association president Ali Hossain, secretary general Sheikh Masadul Alam Masud and other leaders of the two organisations spoke on the occasion.
   The leaders alleged that the pre-shipment inspection (PSI) companies did not properly examine their imported raw materials at the stage of shipment.
   As a result, they alleged, the foreign suppliers were shipping stones, silts, dusts and rubbish instead of the ordered melting scraps. This has posed a serious problem for the mills operators to survive the competition, they mentioned in a written statement.
   They also alleged that a section of the customs officials harass the mill operators in releasing the imported raw materials from the port.
   Urging the NBR to address the problems immediately, the re-rolling mills’ operators said that otherwise, they would be compelled to go for greater movement to realise their demands.
   The steel mills’ leaders demanded 20 per cent rebate on electricity bills of those mills which pay their bills regularly and where electricity system loss came down to below five per cent from a whopping 50 per cent in the past.

The World Bank is committed to helping agriculture-dependent India reach out to its millions of rural poor, president Paul Wolfowitz said as he began a visit Thursday.
   Wolfowitz, on his first swing through the impoverished South Asian region in his new post, hailed India as a ‘rapidly emerging country of global importance.’
   But the former deputy US defense secretary lamented that poverty remained rampant despite India’s success in information technology, industry and commerce.
   Wolfowitz, who arrived in the southern IT hub of Hyderabad late Wednesday from Pakistan, said the Bank was determined to help the country assist its millions of rural poor.
   ‘The majority of Indians still live in rural India and the government has rightly made rural infrastructure a priority,’ said Wolfowitz who heads to Bangladesh after his three-day visit to India.
   Wolfowitz is to hold talks in New Delhi with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh whose Congress-led government has pledged to make rural development its top priority.
   ‘The Bank remains committed to helping the government scale up its efforts to reach out to millions of people needing better access to services in rural areas,’ said Wolfowitz.

The president of the Chittagong Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Saifuzzaman Chowdhury, has hailed the decision of slashing duties in mid and lower tiers by 2 and 1.5 per cent respectively.
   He also thanked the finance and planning minister, M Saifur Rahman, and requested him to reduce the import tariff of industrial raw materials and capital machinery keeping this within 5 per cent.
   In a statement Thursday, the CCCI president said that due to the galloping price of petroleum products in the international market and devaluation of local currency, the prices of essentials such as rice, pulses, wheat, edible oil, onion and spices were soaring.
   Slashing of tariff in the mid and lower-tiers would help reduce the prices of these commodities in the ensuing holy month Ramadan, he said.
   Chowdhury felt that this change in tariff structure would reduce the total tax incidence of primary and mid-level raw materials of import-based industries of the country.
   The tariff reduction would also help the local export-oriented business to attain competitiveness in manufacturing exportable products, he said.
   The CCCI president in his faxed statement reiterated the earlier proposal of the Chamber and requested to keep the import duty of industrial raw materials and capital machinery up to 5 per cent to raise the quality of local products and attain competitiveness in international market.
   The government reduced the import duties on 3,352 items on Tuesday.

The government will undertake a study on fisheries and livestock sectors in line with the recently concluded agriculture sector review.
   The study is intended to help the government take steps to address the present and future challenges to exploit its full potentiality, an official handout said.
   This was decided at the 26th meeting of the governing body of Bangladesh Agriculture Research Council with the Agriculture Minister, M K Anwar, in the chair.
   The meeting was also attended by the Environment and Forest Minister, Tariqul Islam. Agriculture secretary Kazi Abul Kashem, environment and forest secretary Jafar Ahmed Choudhury, member of the planning division Iman Uddin Mozumder, executive chairman of BARC Dr. Nurul Alam, agriculture scientists, researchers and professionals were present in the meeting.
   In the meeting, three separate recommendations on the review reports of three research organisations including Bangladesh Rice Research Institute, Bangladesh Institute of Nuclear Agriculture and Bangladesh Tea Research Institute were presented. BARC is the apex body of the ten agriculture research institutes including the above three organisations.
   Agriculture Minister laid emphasis on close coordination between educational institutions and research organisations to expedite the research initiatives. He asked the scientists to develop new technologies for milling of rice and other grains to reduce loss. He stressed on the strengthening of research on nuclear agriculture to infuse modern knowledge in agriculture.
   Emphasising on reaching the research outcome to the people, the Environment Minister, Tariqul Islam, asked the scientists to take up pro-people research. He stressed on the diversification of research areas to cover the whole gamut of agriculture.

Industries Minister Matiur Rahman Nizami Thursday underscored the need for inspiring the sugarcane cultivators for farming high-yielding verity of sugarcane to meet the demand of the country’s sugar mills.
   The sugar mills would have to be turned into profitable concerns in the interest of the sugarcane farmers and sugar mills workers and for reducing spending on sugar import, he said.
   The minister was addressing a motivational meeting of farmers to stop operation of power crushers and achieve the production target for the 2005-06 sugarcane-crushing season.
   Deputy Minister for Land Adv Ruhul Quddus Talukder Dulu and chairman of Bangladesh Sugar and Food Industries Corporation (BSFIC) M Momtazul Islam were the special guests at the meeting at the District Council auditorium.
   The Industries Minister said the price of sugarcane would be raised in the next season if the losses of the sugar mills could be reduced to zero level in the current season.
   The government has been encouraging the farmers paying the prices of their crops in time, he added.

The National Institute of Banking and Finance of Pakistan has offered training programme for 2-3 candidates from Bangladesh this year under an international training scheme. More candidates will also be considered on self-finance basis, according to a message received here Thursday.
   Under the scheme, Pakistan offers scholarships at the graduate and post-graduate levels to Bangladeshi students in various disciplines.

The Multi Media Production Co Ltd, operating company of the satellite television channel ATN Bangla, has recently signed an agreement with GrameenPhone Ltd under corporate sales package initiative.
   ATN Bangla selected GrameenPhone as the total telecommunication partner. It will be using GP mobiles to maintain effective communication among its reporters and other partners around the country.
   Sarker Feroz, senior vice-president (administration) of the Multi Media Production, and Tanvir Ibrahim, head of corporate sales of the GrameenPhone, signed the agreement on behalf of their respective organisations.

The 153rd branch of the Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited was inaugurated on Sunday at the Kalabagan Bazar, Faridganj in Chandpur, said a press release.
   Alamgir Haider Khan, MP inaugurated the branch.
   Presided over by the chairman of the executive committee of the bank, Mominul Islam Patwary, the inauguration ceremony was attended by the deputy commissioner of Chandpur, Md Taherul Islam, as the special guest along with the other senior officials of the bank.

The chairman and managing director of Rangs Group of Companies Akter Hussain reiterated his pledge for further improvement of customer service as the company's sales continued to grow.
   He renewed the commitment while inaugurating the Annual Sales Meet 2005 of Rangs Electronics Ltd, popularly known as Sony Rangs, at the Hotel Sheraton in Dhaka. Delegates from Sony Singapore Richard Thong and Soh Hwee Poh, deputy managing director of Rangs Electronics Ltd J Ekram Hussain, vice chairperson Sachimi Hussain and Mahbubul Gani, among others, attended the programme, joined by dealers and sales executives from above 150 showrooms across the country.

The Prime Bank Limited managing director M Shahjahan Bhuiyan advised the officials of the desk concerned to discharge their duties carefully and sincerely to bring in more remittance from abroad.
   He said this while inaugurating a four-day workshop on foreign remittance rules and procedures.
   He stressed on further improvement of bank’s remittance services to overcome the present dollar crisis. Mid-level officers from different branches of the bank took part in the workshop.

Mostafa Golam Quddus was unanimously re-elected chairman of the Rupali Insurance Company Limited at the company's 112th meeting of the board of directors on Tuesday, says a press release.
   A former president of the Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exportsers Association (BGMEA), Golam Quddus is the managing director and chairman of the Dragon Group, a sweater producing company of the country.
   Under his dynamic guidance Rupali Insurance Company has seen impressive growth over the years.

Nomadix, a leading provider of intelligent network devices and interconnection services, would work as the preferred access ‘Gateway’ for hotels in the country.
   This was an outcome of a seminar on Nomadix and its application organised by Alap Communication Ltd at a city hotel Tuesday.
   Tabith Awal, director of the Alap Communication Ltd, said being a partner of the Nomadix in Bangladesh, it aimed to bring all the hotels under one platform.
   Apart from the application, the Nomadix’s service is widely deployed in airports, enterprise guest access initiatives, and convention centres that make nomadic computing easy, the discussants said.
   According to them, the Nomadix is becoming the global internet access solution for multiple and concurrent users.
   Fred Reeder, Sales Director (Asia Pacific) of the company while presenting on its application for hotel services, said that by using Nomadix gateway, hotels and hospitality service providers could utilise their internet and network as an asset and ensure revenue generation.
   Professionals in the city’s renowned hotels took part in the seminar. Among others, chairman of the Alap Communication Ltd Khadem Yusuf and its managing director Khan Mohammad Ahsan attended the occasion.

The United States and China are close to a broad textile trade pact to deal with surging imports from China but will likely need another meeting to reach an agreement, the Bush administration’s textile negotiator said Wednesday.
   David Spooner, the White House special textile negotiator, said two days of talks in San Francisco have been fruitful but have not yet yielded a deal US manufacturers hope will limit surging Chinese imports.
   He added if a final meeting was needed it would likely take place in China before Aug. 31 — the date when the Bush administration is expected to make a decision on requests for additional restrictions on textile imports from China.
   ‘Both sides are eager to solve this problem but both sides also say they would rather take a little longer to get a good deal rather than easily reach a bad deal,’ Spooner said. ‘We hope to finish in one more meeting but will have more meetings if that is what it takes.’
   The talks come as part of the normal consultations required under WTO rules whenever a member country imposes safeguard curbs — a move the United States took earlier this year after a decades-old global quota system expired on Jan. 1.
   Since then, the Bush administration has blocked billions of dollars of shirts, pants and other clothing under a special textile ‘safeguard’ provision that China accepted when it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.
   US textile groups and lawmakers have pressed the White House for a comprehensive deal to restrict clothing imports from China through 2008, when the safeguard mechanism expires.
   Spooner declined to provide specific details of the talks but said the United States was seeking a multiyear agreement broad enough to cover current safeguards as well as potential future ones. He said the United States offered a proposal on Tuesday and the Chinese made a counterproposal on Wednesday.
   ‘The talks in the last couple days have gone very well,’ he said. ‘There have been productive meetings.’
   The US has imposed quotas on a number of clothing categories that limit growth to 7.5 percent a year—a rate US textile manufactures would like to see in a final deal.
   Import groups and retailers, however, say tough limits could drive up clothing costs for US consumers and want to growth set at a much higher rate of at least 20 percent to 25 percent.

The European Union must ease curbs on Chinese clothing imports or risk job losses and bankruptcies across the 25-nation bloc, four EU ministers said in an article published Thursday.
   Writing in the Financial Times newspaper, the ministers accused Brussels of sticking to an outdated view of international trade which could harm the EU economy.
   ‘Scores of European trading companies are facing bankruptcy or severe financial losses. Many jobs are likely to be lost,’ they wrote. ‘Trying to stop imports and outsourcing amounts to economic suicide.’
   The article was signed by Dutch Foreign Trade Minister Karien van Gennip, Danish Economy Minister Bendt Bendtsen, Swedish Industry Minister Thomas Ostros and Finnish Foreign Trade Minister Paula Lehtomaki.
   New EU quotas to limit soaring clothing imports from China have already been exceeded in the case of sweaters and trousers, only weeks after they were agreed with Beijing.
   The four ministers said Brussels was wrong to resort to quotas to try to save Euro-
   pean jobs.
   ‘We do not believe the reintroduction of import quotas for certain textile and clothing products from China is going to save Europe’s remaining textile industry,’ they wrote.
   They urged Brussels to do more to help EU retailers who ordered goods before the 2005 quotas were breached and now face the prospect of empty shelves in the autumn.
   ‘The message we keep hearing from desperate importers is that they placed their orders long before there was any concrete indication that quotas might be reintroduced,’ the four said. ‘If the EU were to leave these importers out in the cold would that benefit producers? We doubt it.’

World Trade Organisation (WTO) experts ruled against the United States Wednesday in a long- running row with the European Union over special US duties on carbon steel products from Britain and Spain.
   The three-man team also recommended that the 148-nation WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body call on Washington to come into line over the issue.
   The experts, sitting as a compliance panel, found that US amendments to the way Washington applied the duties to British and Spanish products after losing an earlier case brought by the EU did not comply fully with WTO rules.
   But they found that the US methods of assessing new duties on carbon steel flat products from France were in order.
   The Office of the United States Trade Representative contended later on Wednesday that the ruling was at worst a mixed result for the United States.
   ‘The findings of the panel are mixed, though largely favorable to the United States,’ said USTR press secretary Neena Moorjani.
   ‘The Panel rejected the majority of the EC’s claims that the United States failed to comply with the DSB’s ruling and recommendations. The Panel did find that Commerce should have taken more evidence into account in two of its redeterminations,’ she added, saying both the United States and the EU had the option of appealing the result.
   The case dates back to when the EU challenged the United States in the WTO over duties Washington imposed on carbon steel goods to make up for what it argued were effective continuing subsidies to former state- owned steel firms in Europe.
   A dispute panel and appeals judges in 2002 and 2003 found largely in favor of the EU complaint, which was backed by Brazil, and US officials said they would implement the recommended changes.
   But last year Brussels said changes in the application of the US duties still violated WTO rules—and won agreement from other WTO members to set up the compliance panel.

India, the world’s fastest growing wireless market, is also becoming a handset manufacturing hub as global phone makers seek cost-cutting opportunities in a country where phone ownership has room to boom.
   Despite a lack of reliable infrastructure in India such as regular power supplies and world class ports, companies including Elcoteq, Europe’s top electronics contract manufacturer, have set up shop to soak up local demand and base their global sourcing from Asia’s third largest economy.
   Manufacturing in India could shave costs by 2-3 percent—an attractive edge for handset makers whose margins are being eroded by fierce competition and heavy advertising costs, says Pankaj Mohindroo, chief of the Indian Cellular Association.
   Top handset maker Nokia, a leader in India’s $2.5 billion mobile phones market, and its suppliers have announced plans to invest up to $150 million in a manufacturing plant to keep costs low amid rising competition from rivals such as Motorola.
   Nokia is building a unit in the southern port city of Chennai, not far from Elcoteq’s humming facility in Bangalore, the tech capital. LG Electronics Inc., the fourth largest player, has an assembly unit in the western city of Pune.
   Handset makers are encouraged by policy changes in India that allow unlimited competition in telecoms services and the opening up of the sector to foreign competition.

Oil dropped more than 4 percent to nearly $63 a barrel Wednesday on softer US gasoline demand and economic data showing record crude prices were stoking US inflation.
   Signs that high prices were beginning to crimp economic growth slowed a rally that had catapulted oil to a high of $67.10 last Friday and toward the $82 inflation-adjusted average in 1980, the year after the Iranian revolution.
   US producer prices rose a higher-than-expected 1 percent in July on soaring energy costs, data showed on Wednesday. A day earlier, figures showed US July consumer prices rising at their fastest rate in three months and British inflation at its highest level since comparable records began in 1997.
   US crude oil settled at $63.25 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, down $2.83. Earlier it had spiked $66.60 a barrel after US supply data showed refinery outages sank gasoline supplies.

Soaring energy costs pushed US producer prices up by twice as much as expected in July, government data showed Wednesday, with core prices excluding food and energy also flashing a warning of future inflation.
   The Labor Department said the producer price index rose 1.0 percent last month. Prices for finished energy goods jumped 4.4 percent, the biggest rise since October 2004, while finished consumer food prices fell 0.3 percent.
   Excluding those volatile areas, so-called core producer prices climbed 0.4 percent.
   ‘There are pipeline inflation pressures out there. Business pricing power continues to rise as the economy grows above trend and there are upside risks going forward that eventually will show up,’ said Morgan Stanley economist Ted Wiesman.
   Wall Street economists had expected overall producer prices to rise 0.5 percent, with core prices up 0.1 percent.

Indian shares ended lower on Thursday in volatile trade following a recent rally, wiping out early gains that pushed the main stock index to an all-time high.
   The 30-share BSE index lost 0.6 per cent to 7,811.33 points on active trade of 529 million shares. The 50-issue NSE index also fell 0.6 per cent to 2,388.45 points.
   ‘A section of the market seems to be believing that it’s time take some cash out,’ said Vignesh Eswar, strategist at Emkay Share & Stock Brokers. ‘With the market gaining about 4.5 per cent in about a week, it wasn’t surprising.’
   The index has gained 18 per cent since the start of June and is up 20 per cent this year, on net foreign fund investment of nearly $7.3 billion.
   Earlier in the day, the BSE index rose to a new high of 7921.39 points as crude prices softened and global equities rose.
   However, the index weakened amid talk of a technical forecast from an international brokerage for more than a 10 per cent correction from current levels, a trader said.
   In Sri Lanka, the Colombo All-Share index slipped 0.1 per cent to 2,134.90 points, while Pakistan’s Karachi-100 index ended 0.56 per cent lower at 7099.22 points.
   United Western Bank Ltd. fell 13 per cent to 60.95 rupees after it said its board would meet on Aug. 26 to consider a bonus and rights issue of shares.
   Infrastructure Development Finance Co. Ltd. rose 1.2 per cent to 68.30 rupees after it reported April-June net profit had doubled to 1.08 billion rupees from a year earlier.
   Steel makers slipped after recent gains on expectations that prices would firm in September. Top producer Steel Authority of India Ltd. eased 1.5 per cent to 64.55 rupees, Tata Steel Ltd. dipped 1.3 per cent to 408.55 rupees, and Essar Steel dropped 0.6 per cent to 60.40 rupees.
   Software services firms rose, tracking overnight Nasdaq gains and a firmer dollar. Top exporter Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. gained 1.2 per cent to 1,313.70 rupees and No. 3 exporter Wipro Ltd. added 0.6 per cent to 728.95 rupees.
   Cheaper oil prices boosted top refiner Indian Oil Corp. by 1.3 to 428.65 rupees. Video cassette maker Media Video Ltd. added 1 per cent to 39.25 rupees after it won a 200-million-rupee order for gaming software.
   Hindustan Construction Company Ltd. rose 6.4 per cent to 795.15 rupees after it said it had won a contract worth 2.14 billion rupees to build a road in the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Three more EPZs
in the offing
The commerce minister, Altaf Hossain Chowdhury, Thursday said the government is developing three more Export Processing Zones (EPZs) for rapid industrialisation in the country. ‘All the plots of the six existing EPZs, except the Ishwardi EPZ, have already been allocated for setting up industrial units,’ he said while addressing a group of Indian packaging entrepreneurs at a city hotel. The government, giving top priority to industrialisation, is developing three more EPZs – two in Chittagong and one at the Adamjee Jute Mills site, the minister said. Urging the Indian investors to invest more in Bangladesh, he informed that the flow of foreign investment increased by 50 per cent last year.
— UNB

Chile wants more trade with Bangladesh
Chile is interested to enhance trade with Bangladesh and strengthen economic relations between the two countries. Ambassador of Chile to Bangladesh George Heine said this Thursday morning while paying a courtesy call on the leaders of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association. During the visit he discussed with the BGMEA leaders different issues on bilateral interests. BGMEA leaders requested the government of Chile through the ambassador to import readymade garments from Bangladesh at large scale. Besides they also requested him to provide all kinds of assistance in organising a ‘single country fair’ in Chile, where only garments made in Bangladesh will be displayed. The ambassador said Pakistan exports goods worth US $ 5 crore to Chile while Sri Lanka exports worth US $ 3 crore and India worth US $ 50 crore. But Bangladesh exports goods worth less than US $ 1 million to Chile. Chile has recently chosen South Asia as its new target to enhance bilateral trade and Bangladesh can capitalise on this opportunity, George Heine added.
— BDNEW

No trading at DSE
There was no trading at the Dhaka Stock Exchange as the stock exchange was installing its upgraded automated system.
— New Age

CSE closes higher
Trading at Chittagong Stock Exchange closed higher Thursday with the gainers dominating the losers. The CSE All Share Price Index increased by 11.47 points or 0.37 per cent to close at 3094.74 points from Wednesday’s 3083.27 points.The CSE-30 Index also enhanced by 15.77 points or 0.54 per cent to close at 2922.22 points from 2906.45 points on the previous trading day. A total of 45 issues traded Thursday. Of them, 30 gained, seven declined and eight remained unchanged. Some 428,500 shares and debentures worth Tk 1.74 crore changed hands Thursday against 1,021,841 shares and debentures worth Tk 5.37 crore on the previous trading day.
— UNB

Google to sell $4.2b of shares a year
after IPO
Google Inc., the world’s most-used Internet search engine, plans to sell as many as 14.8 million shares in a $4.2 billion transaction a year after its initial public offering. Google, whose shares have more than tripled since its IPO, will sell 14,159,265 Class A shares and underwriters will have an option to sell an additional 600,000 shares, the Mountain View, California-based company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing The company will have a total of 191,129,404 shares outstanding after the sale. Google shares closed yesterday at $285.10, compared with $85 a share in the company’s IPO.
— Bloomberg

Car imports drop as China ups production
China’s total volume of automobile imports dropped by one-third in the first half of this year, which insiders attributed to the increased production of domestic-made cars, foreign exchange rate fluctuation as well as the policy factor, Beijing-based Economic Information Daily reported Monday. In the latter half of this year, China’s car imports are expected to exceed that in the first half year, Ding Hongxiang, general manager of China Trading Center For Automobile Import said. The car import decrease in the period was related to the growing investment and production of Toyota, Nissan and Honda, three major Japanese auto giants in China, Ding said. Figures showed in the first half year, China produced 30,000 Nissan cars, 10,000 Crown (Toyota) cars, 25,000 Mazda cars and 65,000 Accord (Honda) cars. The supply growth of domestic-made cars, together with the Japanese yen’s appreciation, has made it more difficult for Japanese cars to arrive in China, Ding said. Previously Japan’s Toyota and Nissan companies were two major car exporters for the Chinese market.
— Xinhuanet

Gas prices in Canada at record high
Canadians are paying 1.04 Canadian dollars (0.83 US dollars) a liter for regular gasoline on average, the first time oil price rose above 1 Canadian dollar in the country. M.J. Ervin & Associates, a Calgary firm that tracks retail fuel prices, said the oil price shot to 1.21 Canadian dollars in remote Labrador communities Tuesday. ‘The biggest factor playing into the current pump price is, without a doubt, the high crude oil prices,’ Cathy Hay, a senior associate with M.J. Ervin, said. ‘But layering in on top of that is very strong gasoline demand and a decline in inventories.’ Surging oil demand and ongoing political concerns in the Middle East forced crude oil to new record levels each day of trading last week. Prices have come off slightly this week, but closed at 66.08 US dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange - a full 20 US dollars higher than one year ago. Doug Porter, a deputy chief economist with the Bank of Montreal,says consumers are not likely to change their driving or purchasing habits overnight even if costs have increased substantially.
— Xinhuanet

US first-time jobless claim rises
The number of Americans claiming initial jobless aid rose 6,000 last week, the government said on Thursday, but jobless claims remained at levels indicative of a healthy labor market. First-time claims for unemployment benefits rose to 316,000 in the week ended Aug. 13 from a revised 310,000 the prior week, the Labour Department said. While the number topped expectations, it came in well below the 333,000 recorded for the same period a year ago, the report showed. A Labour Department analyst said the rise was due to the regular seasonal adjustment methodology applied to the data. Claims unadjusted for seasonal factors actually fell 14,466, but that was less than the roughly 19,000 that the seasonal adjustment factors had expected. The seasonally adjusted rise in new claims topped Wall Street estimates for an increase to 310,500 from the original reading of 308,000 in the week ended August 6.
— Reuters