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Increased borrowing by the private sector pushed up the overall domestic credit by 7.5 per cent during the first half of the current fiscal year.
   Bangladesh Bank statistics revealed that domestic credit flow amounted at Tk9422.40 crore during July-December, 2004.
   About Tk9,085.80 crore was channelled to the country’s private sector in the first half of the current fiscal.
   Government’s net borrowings from banking sector stood at Tk389.9 crore at the end of December 2004 while credit to other public sector amounted to Tk44.30 crore.
   During July-December, 2004, credit flow to private sector increased by 9.6 per cent over the same period of the last fiscal, while government’s borrowing from banking sources increased modestly.
   The non-bank borrowing of the government declined during the period.
   Gross sales of savings instruments amounted to Tk4,742.86 crore during July-December, 2004, down by 12.3 per cent from that of July-December 2003.
   The decline in sale of savings certificates appeared as a reaction to the government’s decision of lowering interest rate of national savings directorate certificates.
   The recent upward movement in the capital market can also be correlated with the declining trend of the sales of savings instruments.
   The trend, at the same time, seemed to be a pressure for the government to borrow more from the banking sector to finance budget deficit in near future.
   Budget deficit is estimated at Tk14,059 crore for the whole fiscal year and about Tk 3153.20 crore was financed so far.
   Of the total financing, Tk624.48 crore came from domestic sources while the rest Tk2528.72 crore met by foreign funds.

Two American software and tech solution firms are stepping into Bangladesh market to explore business potentials in information and energy sector technologies.
   Kyliptix Solutions, a USA-based information technology firm, will start its business operation in Bangladesh this month, the company’s top executive said in Dhaka Thursday.
   The firm will provide different IT software solutions as well as services like outsourcing, hosting packages and wireless.
   Another company WG Petroleum, a sister concern of Kyliptix Solutions, will also come to Bangladesh this year with primary focus on oil and gas equipments.
   ‘We have long-term investment plans in Bangladesh,’ said William Gast, president and chief executive officer of Kyliptix, explaining the company’s business expansion strategies in South Asia, Middle East and Central Asia in Dhaka on Thursday.
   ‘In Bangladesh, there are good engineers who can be useful for us in the IT-based programmes,’ he added.
   Gast said that his company would introduce wireless service to facilitate telecommunication service of the country.
   He also said that they have completed all the formalities with Board of Investment (BOI).
   The Kyliptix president, however, did not disclose any investment figure, but said that within one year the company would invest ‘millions of dollar’ in the country.
   In reply to another question, Gast said WG Petroleum, which is also owned by him, is interested in exploring Bangladesh’s market of oil and gas technology.
   Initially the company would eye on manufacturing and servicing of oil-gas exploration equipments.
   ‘We are still working and it will take some time to finalise the business plan,’ he added.

As several members of parliament raised a volley of questions about the appointment of fertiliser dealers, the industries minister Thursday said a five-member committee has been set up to review the matter for ensuring smooth distribution of fertilisers in remote areas.
   Lawmakers, even the speaker, drew the attention of industries minister Matiur Rahman Nizami about the dealerships and distribution of fertiliser in their constituencies.
   Some of the lawmakers complained that the dealers, who were appointed during the previous Awami League regime, are involved in irregularities. They wanted to know if such dealerships would be cancelled.
   Nizami said it is not correct that all dealers were appointed during the Awami League government. Rather, every government had appointed some of the dealers.
   He said the government is to consider different factors, including political implications, before taking any drastic action against the dealers.
   The minister, however, assured that the 5-member committee headed by joint secretary of the industry ministry has been directed to submit its report by the current month.
   Further steps would be taken on the basis of the committee’s report regarding the appointment of the dealers, he said.
   Fuel subsidy
   The government is likely to spend Tk960.28 crore to make up the trade deficit in petroleum sector this fiscal year, Parliament was told Thursday.
   The deficit was Tk733.89 crore last year, state minister for energy and mineral resources AKM Mosharraf Hossain said.
   ‘The government does not directly subsidise the fuel sector. But there happens to be a trade deficit of the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation because it has to sell the fuel at prices fixed by the government,’ he said.
   The BPC is responsible for this deficit because of the imbalance between import cost and selling price.
   Solar electricity
   The government is concentrating on using solar energy to reduce pressure on thermal and hydro based electricity, state minister for power Iqbal Hasan Mahmud told parliament.
   He said steps are being taken to use solar power in different parts of the country, especially in remote and inaccessible areas, through the Rural Electrification Board, Power Development Board and various NGOs.

There is only one way for Asia's poor countries to avoid looming widespread blackouts: they must keep improving their regulatory framework, a senior official at the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said Wednesday.
   Asia needs billions of dollars a year to build power plants. But some cash-strapped countries, such as the Philippines and Indonesia, are not doing enough to create the environment needed to attract private-sector investment, the official said.
   'I think the only way to bring in a large block of money or investment capital is to provide a much greater level of certainty for the capital investors,' said Robert Bestani, Director General of ADB's Private Sector Finance Department.
   ADB, as a multilateral financial institution, helps the private sector invest in developing countries by providing equity investment, loans, and political/credit risk guarantees.
   But it is impossible for ADB to provide more than a fraction of the $250-300 billion required by Asia annually for infrastructure investment over the next 10 years, he said.
   What ADB can do is act as broker for Asian governments and investors, and help the governments improve their regulatory regime, he said.
   Shaky regulatory frameworks, marked by government or legal meddling in power tariffs, have prevented overseas investors from investing in the power sectors of the Philippines and Indonesia as they suffer chronic electricity shortages.
   To lure capital, Manila and Jakarta may have to accept demands from private-sector investors for long-term power purchasing agreements, known as PPAs, which protect future returns for the investor by locking in a price formula for the electricity the plants produce, Bestani said.
   The Philippines and Indonesia are reluctant to offer PPAs-which are currently the price of foreign power funding in developing countries-partly on concerns they would add to their already heavy debt burdens, bankers say.
   They also regard the terms asked by some foreign investors as excessively high, bankers say.
   Many of the PPAs signed in the 1990s in Asia have been renegotiated to make them less onerous for governments following the 1997/98 Asian crisis, when massive devaluations in some Asian currencies plunged US dollar-financed projects with revenues in local currencies into crisis.

Stocks slightly gained ahead of weekend as investors bid cautiously Thursday after a modest recovery in the past couple of days.
   Transactions, however, remained high at both the Dhaka and the Chittagong stock exchanges.
   Investors at DSE remained focused on banking stocks which witnessed a mixed trend on the day.
   One Bank Ltd declared 17 per cent stock dividend for the year 2004. The company reported Tk19.46 crore as net profit during the year. But the share price saw a decline of Tk14.5 to Tk415.
   Southeast Bank, Exim Bank, Dhaka Bank, Prime Bank, Mutual Trust Bank and United Commercial Bank were most active shares at the DSE.
   In manufacturing sector, Square Textile, Padma Textile and Keya Cosmetics were most active.
   The DSE general index edged up 0.9 points or 0.05 per cent to 1881.7 points, however, losers topped the gainers 80 to 73.
   DSE 20 index that comprises blue-chip shares drifted down marginally to 2094 points, down by 1.6 points or 0.07 per cent.
   All Share Price Index at the Chittagong Stock Exchange gained 11.8 points or 0.3 per cent to 3426.5 points.
   Turnover at DSE amounted to Tk48.6 crore, while it was about Tk9.4 crore at CSE.

Tehran could look forward to years of negotiations to join the World Trade Organization, even if the United States dropped its opposition to those talks as part of a deal for Iran to give up nuclear weapons, trade experts said yesterday.
   'It obviously would not be a quick and easy negotiation. The Saudis can attest to some of the complications that arise when you have to negotiate with 148 other member countries,' said Jeffrey Schott, a trade policy expert at the Institute for International Economics.
   The Bush administration has been considering joining Europe in offering Iran a package of economic incentives to abandon nuclear weapons. One of those is dropping its long-standing policy of blocking Tehran's application to join the WTO.
   Iran would then join a group of some 20 other countries currently trying to enter the world trade body. The list includes nations, such as Russia and Saudi Arabia, which have been negotiating their 'accession' agreements for years.

Vietnam might have to give up on its ambition to join the World Trade Organisation (WTO) later this year given that little progress has been made in recent negotiations, a report said Wednesday.
   'We earlier expected the country to join the WTO this year but the current situation may make that unrealistic. Perhaps (it) will take place next year,' Trade Minister Truong Dinh Tuyen said in a Saigon Times daily report.
   The communist country is under no formal pressure to join the WTO by the time the global trade body holds its next ministerial conference in Hong Kong in December but Hanoi had up to now made that date its target.
   Tuyen's comments are the first such statement by a member of the Vietnamese government, a foreign analyst noted.
   'In the last two weeks, lots of people have come to the conclusion that it would be difficult,' the analyst said, asking not to be named. 'Tuyen was the one saying all the time that admission in 2005 was possible.'

M/s. Blossom Textiles Limited, a British company, will set up a composite textile industry in Comilla Export Processing Zone with an investment of of $ 5.246 million, says a press release.
   An agreement to this effect was signed between the Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority and the M/s. Blossom Textiles in Dhaka yesterday.
   Under the agreement, Blossom Textiles will produce 750 thousand kgs of dyed yarn and 2.1 million pcs of knitted wears annually. The company will also manufacture sweater, cardigans, pullover, gloves and scarf.
   Md Shahjahan, member (investment promotion) of BEPZA and Yeung Ngai,
   director of Blossom Textiles, signed the lease agreement on behalf of their respective sides.
   Blossom Textiles, which is based in the British Vergin Island, is 100 per cent foreign-owned company.
   The company will create employment opportunity for about 2027 Bangadeshi and 23 foreign nationals.
   The executive chairman, Md Zakir Hossain, the member (finance) Masud Ahmed, the member (engineering) Abu Reza Khan, the secretary S Mahmood Yunus and the general manager (investment promotion) AZM Azizur Rahman of the BEPZA were present at the signing ceremony.

The Deputy Governor of Bangladesh Bank, Muhammad A (Rumee) Ali, stressed the need for improving leadership skill in banking operation with the application of information technology, says a press release.
   He was speaking as chief guest at the inaugural session of a workshop on 'Leadership Skills and Managing Changes' organized by the United Commercial Bank Ltd on Thursday.
   Senior executives of head office and branch managers attended the workshop chaired by Hamidul Huq, managing director of United Commercial Bank.
   Top executives of different banks and experts in the fmancial sector spoke at the function.
   They highlighted important aspects of professional development.
   Various aspects of banking operation including leadership management in consumer banking, in corporate banking, managing changes for effective leadership, leadership skill and human resources management and IT application came up for discussion.
   K Mahmood Sattar, managing director of Eastern Bank Ltd., Imran Rahman, deputy managing director of BRAC Bank Ltd, Majedur Rahman, deputy managing director of IPDC, among others, also spoke at the function.

Unilever Bangladesh Limited and SouthAsia Enterprise Development Facility (SEDF) signed an agreement on the national roll-out of the Project Durbin - the sales automation project of Unilever distributors, on Thursday, says a press release.
   Kazi Waqar Ahmed, director finance of Unilever Bangladesh, Deepak Adhikary, acting general manager of SEDF and Ishtiaque Hossain, director of Computer Ease signed the agreement on behalf of their respective organisations.
   With the implementation of the Durbin project, Unilever distributors will enter into a new technology era where sales representatives will operate with computerized hand-held terminals (HHT).
   This will significantly reduce distributors' administrative complexities and cost and improve efficiencies of their resources. After successful completion of the pilot phase of the project, Unilever and SEDF have decided to roll out this project among 50 distributors throughout the country.

The largest ever 20-storey 'Planners Tower' market for house decoration and construction materials was inaugurated at Bangla Motor in Dhaka on Tuesday, says a press release.
   The president of the Bangladesh Institute of Planners and the vice-chancellor of United International University, Dr Golam Rahman, inaugurated the multi-storied tower at a function.
   Chaired by the managing director of Tropical Homes Ltd, Rabiul Hoque, the function was attended by the REHAB president, Dr Towfique M Seraj and the managing director of the Friedship Tower, Emdadul Hoque, as special guests.
   In the function, a symbolic key for the market was handed over to the president of Planners Tower Owners Association, Mushfiqur Rahman.

Vanik Bangladesh Limited recently signed an agreement with Sonali Bank to get credit facility from the bank, says a press release.
   The managing director of Vanik Bangladesh Ltd, Sayyed Husain Jamal and the general manager of Sonali Bank, Md Abdus Salam signed the agreement on behalf of their respective organisations.
   Mukter Hussain, deputy managing director, Md Amanullah, deputy managing director, Tapon Kumar Ghosh, deputy general manager of Sonali Bank and Asad Khan, senior executive vice-president, AKM Anwarul Kabir, senior vice-president, Quamrul Islam, assistant vice-president of Vanik Bangladesh were also present at the signing ceremony.

Md Abdur Rashid Sarker has recently joined the Bangladesh Rural Development Board as director general, says a press release.
   Earlier, Sarker served as additional secretary of the Ministry of Food and Disaster Management.

Oil prices held near a four-month high above $53 a barrel on Thursday as investment fund buying and US refinery outages extended a rally close to last year's all-time high.
   US light crude added 3 cents to $53.08 a barrel, posting gains of almost 17 per cent in just over three weeks. London Brent crude was up 16 cents at $51.38 a barrel, just short of October's record $51.94.
   Refinery glitches in the massive US oil market outweighed rising inventories on Wednesday, propelling prices above $53 a barrel for the first time since Oct. 27 last year.
   On Oct. 25 the market hit an all-time high of $55.67.
   Disruptions at Texas oil refineries included a brief outage at a gasoline unit of BP's big Texas City plant and a fire at Western Refining Co.'s refinery in El Paso.
   The market becomes more sensitive to problems with gasoline production in the world's largest energy consumer with the approach of spring, as dealers anticipate rising motor fuel demand for the summer vacation season.
   Maintenance restricted US refineries to 89.3 per cent of capacity last week, their lowest rate in four months, exacerbating fears that global product supplies could tighten significantly.
   'There are big refinery turnarounds in Europe, the United States and Asia-so if there's a blip in demand, where are you going to get the supply?,' said Colin Tang, a Singapore-based oil trader with French investment bank Calyon.
   Prices are high despite comfortable US stocks of gasoline and crude, with inventories at 9-10 per cent above year-ago levels.
   But stocks of heating oil are at a 8 per cent deficit versus last yeasr just as late-winter frigid weather continue to stoke demand in the US Northeast.
   'Cold weather will be around for another few weeks and that only adds fuel to the move up,' added Tang.

Oil prices may temporarily spike to $80 a barrel during the next two years in there is a major supply disruption, OPEC’s Acting Secretary-General, Adnan Shihab-Eldin, was quoted as saying by a newspaper on Thursday.
   ‘I can stress that the probability that the price of a barrel of crude rises to $80 in the near future is a low probability,’ Shihab-Eldin told leading Kuwaiti daily al-Qabas in an interview in Vienna.
   ‘However, I can’t rule out the rise of a barrel of oil to $80 in the coming two years,’ he said.
   ‘But, if the price rises to this level for one reason or another (for example a shortage of supplies from a producer nation by one or two million barrels per day), it’s not expected that this spike will last long.’
   Prices around $50 or $60 a barrel, if they continued for two years or more, would increase investment to expand supplies and curtail demand, pushing down prices in the end, he added.
   ‘This is an essential law of economics,’ Shihab-Eldin noted.
   US crude oil rose to a fresh four-month high over $53 per barrel on Wednesday as refinery problems in Texas propelled gasoline up to an all-time peak.
   Shihab-Eldin has said that OPEC saw a growing consensus that a $40-50 range for US crude was sustainable, backing up comments by Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi last week that prices could stay in that range this year.
   Shihab-Eldin also told al-Qabas that it was in the best interests of the OPEC oil producers cartel and the rest of the world that there be no big or sudden jumps in price levels but instead a balanced and gradual rise. '

A federal appeals court on Wednesday overturned a $521 million patent infringement ruling against Microsoft Corp and ordered a lower court to retry the case against the world’s largest software maker.
   The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said the original verdict, which found that parts of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Web browser had infringed on technology developed by privately held firm Eolas Technologies Inc. and the University of California, had ignored two of Microsoft’s key arguments.
   The case sparked concerns that Microsoft would have to alter its Internet browser, making it unable to run certain applets, or mini-applications, that run on Web pages. Microsoft’s browser is used by 9 of every 10 Web surfers.
   But a year ago, Microsoft won a ruling by the US Patent and Trademark Office, which invalidated a claim by the plaintiffs to the browser technology that allows other mini-applications to work with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.
   ‘We have maintained throughout this process that the Eolas patent is not valid and today’s ruling is a clear affirmation of our position,’ Microsoft spokeswoman Stacy Drake said in an e-mailed statement.
   Martin Lueck, the lawyer heading the business litigation group at Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi LLP that represented Eolas, was not immediately available for comment.
   Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft said it was looking forward to presenting its case again. No date has been set for a retrial.
   In Wednesday’s ruling by the Appeals Court judges, they said ‘this court vacates the district court’s decisions and remands for further proceedings on these issues,’ according to court documents.
   In 2003, an Illinois jury delivered a $521 million verdict against Microsoft, saying it infringed on technology developed by Eolas and the University of California.

Carmakers see low-cost models as a way to coax demand from western Europe’s lacklustre market, aimed at luring drivers from the second-hand market by offering the luxury of a new car without a hefty price tag.
   Manufacturers showcased compact city mini-cars at 2005’s Geneva car show, targeting motorists whose lifestyles demand small, easily manoeuverable vehicles and whose budgets demand relatively low prices.
   PSA’s Peugeot and Citroen brands both launched mini-cars at the Geneva show, the Peugeot 107 and Citroen C1, produced alongside Toyota’s new Aygo city car in a Czech joint venture between the French and Japanese firms.
   ‘We are appealing to price-led buyers who still want elegant cars,’ PSA Chief executive Jean-Martin Folz told reporters at the show, adding that the starting cost for the 107 would be in the region of 8,500 euros ($11,230).
   Toyota said it sees the Aygo as one of its growth models, appealing to younger city-dwelling customers, particularly singles in their 20s, who may not have bought new cars in the past.
   ‘We are going into a new market, and a new market means a younger generation,’ said Yoshio Ishizaka, executive vice- president of Toyota Motor Corp. Even US brands, more usually associated with large vehicles, see potential in the small car segment in Europe.
   The relaunched compact Matiz, made by Korea’s Daewoo, will be sold under the Chevrolet brand, acting as the brand’s flagship model in Europe.
   But analysts cast doubt on the potential market for such basic compact vehicles, and questioned how many young people would spend up to 10,000 euros on a new mini-car when cheaper, larger second-hand alternatives are available.
   ‘Realistically young people do not have the money for a new car—they tend to buy used cars instead. Even if these small cars are priced around 8,000 euros they will still come closer to 10,000 euros once you add the extras,’ said Willi Diez, head of the car institute at the University of Applied Sciences in Nuertingen, Germany.

A federal investigation into an alleged $180 million bribery scandal in Nigeria involving a Halliburton Co. subsidiary and other companies has expanded to examine whether former employees may have illegally coordinated bidding on other foreign construction projects as early as the mid-1980s, long before Halliburton acquired the subsidiary.
   If the Justice Department determines US antitrust laws were broken, the government could deny future government contracts to Halliburton engineering and construction subsidiary KBR, which is its largest contractor serving US troops in Iraq, the company said in its annual regulatory filing.
   ‘Based on the information we have today, we do not believe there are any antitrust violations,’ Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall said in an e-mail Wednesday. ‘We have updated our disclosure to reflect the facts that we know about the situation. There are still more questions than answers, but obviously we take this investigation very seriously and are doing everything we can to help those who are examining our records.’
   Justice Department spokesman Bryan Sierra declined comment.
   The Nigeria allegations center on a contract for a $4 billion Nigerian liquefied natural gas plant awarded in 1995 to TSKJ, a consortium of four partners — M.W. Kellogg Co., a subsidiary of Dresser Industries; Technip AL of France; ENI SpA of Italy; and Japan Gasoline Corp.
   Halliburton acquired Dresser in 1998 — three years after Vice President Dick Cheney began his 1995-2000 tenure as Halliburton’s chief executive officer — and combined its Brown & Root subsidiary with M.W. Kellogg to form KBR.
   The Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission, a French magistrate and Nigerian officials are investigating whether the consortium paid $180 million in bribes to Nigerian officials from 1995 through 2002. The consortium got other contracts involving the Nigerian plant in 1999 and 2002.
   Last June Halliburton fired two consultants, including former KBR chairman A. Jack Stanley, for violating the company’s business code of conduct by receiving ‘improper personal benefits’ related to TSKJ’s construction of the Nigerian plant.
   But the company said in Tuesday’s filing that Stanley and other former workers ‘may have engaged in (other) coordinated bidding with one or more competitors on certain foreign construction projects and that such coordination possibly began as early as the mid-1980s, which was significantly before our 1998 acquisition of Dresser Industries.’
   If the broadened probes determine US antitrust laws were broken, any denial of future contracts to KBR could be based on actions of workers a decade or more before they became KBR employees upon Halliburton’s acquisition of Dresser.
   Charles M. Yablon, a law professor and corporate governance expert at the Cardozo School of Law in New York, said such potential liability comes with mergers and acquisitions. Buyers are expected to conduct extensive due diligence to ferret out such potential problems, ‘but if you don’t know about it, you don’t know to avoid the problem,’ he said.
   Halliburton’s acquisition of Dresser also brought expensive liabilities from asbestos and silica claims that resulted in a $5 billion settlement announced in December 2002 and finalized early this year.
   Anthony Sabino, an associate business professor and energy law expert at St. John’s University, said companies can be hurt by unknowns that come with acquisitions, but potential crimes can be particularly tricky to uncover.
   ‘Potential criminal activity is very hard to uncover when it’s contemporary, much less from the past,’ he said. ‘How far the Justice Department takes it becomes the real issue.’
   Halliburton also is considering whether to spin off or sell KBR. Hall said in an e-mail that she wasn’t sure if potential liabilities associated with possible antitrust violations would turn buyers away.
   ‘We have said that it will take some time to achieve the separation. We’re said before that we’re working on it and think we can get it done, though there are no guarantees and it will take time,’ she said. ‘We’ve pointed out, among other things, for a separation to move forward it will require more certainty around KBR.’
   Halliburton shares rose 81 cents, or 1.9 per cent, to $43.66 in afternoon trading Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange.

Marks and Spencer has pulled all advertising from Associated Newspapers’ three main titles in protest at what it regards as ‘negative’ reporting.
   The struggling high street retailer has withdrawn all adverts from the Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday and London’s Evening Standard.
   The decision followed a series of articles criticising the management team led by Stuart Rose, particularly in the Daily Mail and its Sunday sister title.
   Rose’s dramatic withdrawal from titles that attract millions of the middle-England consumers that he is trying to woo back into the stores may raise questions about M&S’s management.
   He is struggling with increasingly tough conditions on the high street. In the wake of poor Christmas trade he was forced into a profits warning and many City analysts think sales are continuing to deteriorate at an alarming rate.
   The loss of such a big advertiser comes as a blow to Associated, as the Marks and Spencer account is worth millions of pounds. The latest ad campaign alone - which uses the strapline ‘Perfect’ - was described by one advertising executive as a ‘big one’ worth more than £1m.
   Marks and Spencer is understood to have been paying £32,000 for each full page ad in the Daily Mail.
   Neither M&S nor Associated would comment on the matter last night.
   M&S has traditionally been very close to the Daily Mail. Their relationship was epitomised by the fact that the retailer’s new season fashion launches were regularly previewed in the Daily Mail, which sells about 2.4m copies every day.
   The Mail on Sunday has more than 2 million readers.
   Matters are believed to have come to a head towards the end of last year when the Sunday paper’s financial pages ran a story saying the retailer had ‘secretly made moves to sell up to half of its poorly performing Simply Food convenience stores’.
   M&S complained to the newspaper about the article, which was corrected the following week. But the retailer’s management was not satisfied, following what it regarded as a barrage of criticism in the paper’s financial pages.

Raising a child from birth to age five costs on average £52,605, a report from Pregnancy & Birth magazine suggests.
   The costs start to mount even before the birth with antenatal classes, and continue to grow as feeding, clothing and school expenses arise, it says.
   But the biggest expense of all is childcare, with the cost of nurseries, nannies and childminders running into thousands of pounds a year.
   The report did not consider ‘hidden’ costs such as moving to a larger home.
   Other hidden costs include taking time off work.
   More expense From maternity clothes to antenatal classes, the costs start to add up before the baby is born, the report said.
   In early life, the baby can clock up further expenses with parents buying buggies, nappies, baby monitors and infant car seats.
   Feeding the baby costs on average £610 a year, the report added.
   But these costs are dwarfed by the expense of finding childcare. Last year, the Daycare Trust revealed that the average weekly cost of childcare was £73.71.

British sportswear firm Umbro, which supplies kit for the England football team, celebrated its first year as a stock market listed company by reporting record annual profits on Thursday.
   Umbro saw pre-tax profit surge almost three-fold to 15.41 million pounds (22.40 million euros, 29.46 million dollars) in 2004 compared with 4.78 million pounds a year earlier, driven by demand for replica England kits during last summer’s Euro 2004 football championships in Portugal, it said.
   Net profit soared almost six-fold to 10.61 million pounds in 2004 and group turnover rose 10.2 per cent to 140.4 million.
   ‘The profits for the year are the highest ever recorded by the group, and the market expectations of the company for its first year of listing have been achieved,’ Umbro chairman Nigel Doughty said in a statement accompanying the results to the London Stock Exchange.
   Umbro floated on the exchange last June with its shares priced at 100 pence each.
   The price stood at 116 pence in early afternoon trading Thursday, up 2.2 per cent on Wednesday’s closing price.
   ‘Sales of all replica products were at an all time high in 2004 boosted by the Euro 2004 Championships,’ chief executive Peter McGuigan said.
   McGuigan added that Umbro would benefit in 2005 from the launch of the new England replica shirt in advance of the 2006 football World Cup in Germany.
   But overall, 2005 would be only ‘satisfactory’ for the group following contract complications with current English Premiership leaders Chelsea and Glasgow giants Celtic.
   Chelsea paid 24.5 million pounds in January to
   ditch Umbro as their kit provider in 2006 as the Londoners seek to wrap up a more lucrative deal with one of the sportswear group’s rivals.
   The move to exit the contract, due to have run until 2011, prompted a sharp fall in the value of Umbro shares at the time.
   Celtic have also ended their contract, although Umbro on Thursday announced a new four-year deal had been signed with Celtic’s rivals Rangers to begin next season.
   Founded in Manchester, northwest England, in 1924, Umbro supplies kit to more than 150 teams and 170 players globally, including England and Real Madrid striker Michael Owen, who last year re-signed a new 15-year contract with the group.
   ‘Michael will continue to be an ambassador for the brand after his professional playing career has ended,’ Umbro said Thursday.
   Umbro have an exclusive deal also with Owen’s club colleague Michel Salgado.

Repo auction held
The repo auction for commercial banks and financial institutions was held at Bangladesh Bank Thursday. Nine bids of two-day tenor amounting to Tk 247 crore were received, of which nine bids amounting to Tk 185 crore were accepted.The rate of interest against the accepted bids was 8.00 per cent per annum, said a Bangladesh Bank release.
— UNB

CSE index closes up
Trading at Chittagong Stock Exchange closed mixed Thursday with the losers dominating the gainers. The CSE All Share Price Index increased by 7.72 points or 0.34 per cent to close at 3426.50 points from 3418.78 points on Wednesday. The CSE-30 Index shed 6.41 points or 0.19 per cent to close at 3300.69 points from Wednesday’s 3307.10 points. Of the 65 issues traded Thursday, 26 gained, 31 declined and only eight remained unchanged. Some 1,172,828 shares and debentures worth Tk 9.36 crore changed hands against 1,383,966 shares valued at Tk 9.72 crore on the previous trading day. The market capitalisation stood at Tk 206.69 billion as against Tk 206.11 billion on Wednesday.
— UNB

Yahoo Japan to start paying dividend
Top Japanese Internet portal Yahoo Japan Corp said on Thursday it will pay a dividend for the first time in the current business year to March 31, distributing 10 per cent of its net income. The company said it had not yet decided the specific amount per share, but according to Reuters’ calculations using the company’s forecast for full year net profit, the total payout could be 3.54-3.65 billion yen ($33.8-34.8 million). Yahoo Japan made the forecast in January. Analysts on average expect the company to report a net income of about 36 billion yen ($343.7 million), according to Reuters Estimates. Yahoo Japan is 33.5 per cent owned by Yahoo Inc and 42 per cent owned by Japanese Internet communications conglomerate Softbank Corp. Shares of Yahoo closed up 0.38 per cent at 524,000 yen on the Tokyo Stock Exchange before the news.
— Reuters

Job cuts at US companies rise
Job cuts announced by US corporations in February increased 17 per cent from the prior month, according to a report Wednesday. Announced job cuts for February totaled 108,387, compared with 92,351 in January, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. It was the fourth time in five months that job cuts were above 100,000. The report attributed the jump to ‘the new surge in merger and acquisition activity. It was directly responsible for 46,977, or 43 per cent of February job cuts.’ The report is an anecdotal, non-statistical tally of job-cut announcements that are reported in major media outlets. The report focuses only on job-cut announcements, not actual layoffs, and it doesn’t take into account new hires or internal transfers at companies that have announced layoffs. Chicago-based Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. tracks layoff announcements and releases its Challenger Employment report monthly.
— AP

Citigroup, Global Crossing settle suit
Citigroup Inc on Wednesday said it will pay $75 million to settle a lawsuit brought by investors over its role in the collapse of telecommunications network provider Global Crossing Ltd. Citigroup, which was one of Global Crossing’s bankers, was accused in the three-year-old class-action lawsuit of issuing inflated research reports and failing to disclose conflicts of interest. It said the settlement, equal to $46 million after taxes, covers investors in Global Crossing and its Asia Global Crossing Ltd affiliate from Feb. 1, 1999 to Dec. 8, 2003. The agreement requires approval by US District Judge Gerard Lynch in Manhattan. New York-based Citigroup denied any violations of law, but said it settled ‘solely to eliminate the uncertainties, burden and expense of further protracted litigation.’ Last year, the world’s largest financial services company agreed to pay $2.58 billion to settle a WorldCom Inc. class-action case involving similar charges and other matters.
— Reuters

Parmalat to return to stockmarket
Parmalat, the Italian dairy company which went bust after an accounting scandal, hopes to be back on the Italian stock exchange in July. The firm gained protection from creditors in 2003 after revealing debts of 14bn euros ($18.34bn; £9.6bn). This was eight times higher than it had previously stated. In a statement issued on Wednesday night, Parmalat Finanziaria detailed administrators’ latest plans for re-listing the shares of the group. As part of the re-listing on the Italian stock exchange, creditors’ debts are expected to be converted into shares through two new share issues amounting to more than 2bn euros. The company’s creditors will be asked to vote on the plan later this year. The plan is likely to give creditors of Parmalat Finanziaria shares worth about 5.7 per cent of the debts they are owed. This is lower than the 11.3 per cent creditors previously hoped to receive.
— BBC

FedEx to decide on Asia hub by year-end
FedEx, the world’s top air express shipper, will decide whether to set up a new Asian cargo hub in China by the end of 2005 after launching its first direct connection between Europe and the mainland. Such a hub would help the US-based FedEx Corp. cement its foothold in Asia, especially in China—the world’s third-largest trading power—where rival United Parcel Service Inc claims to control a fifth of the market. David Cunningham, FedEx’s Asia Pacific president, said on Thursday the Memphis, Tennessee-based firm had won tentative US approval to add three weekly flights from China ‘shortly after’ March 25, 2006. FedEx, whose purple-hued trucks and planes deliver everything from mortgage applications to flammable gases around the world, now operates 23 flights a week from China. ‘We’re at a point where we will exceed the capacity at Subic Bay in the coming three to four years,’ he told reporters, referring to an existing hub in the Philippines.
— Reuters