Main Page «
Front Page «
Metro «
International «
Sports «
National «
Editorial «
Op-Ed «
Home «
Timeout «
Letters «

Archive «
Launch Supplement «
Special Supplements «

Bangladesh continues to enjoy robust trade growth with the USA on the back of strong apparel sales, despite being left out of the duty-free access the world’s biggest market offers to African and Caribbean nations.
   The total volume of bilateral trade between Bangladesh and the United States crossed $1 billon level in the first four months of the current calendar year, posting 23.4 per cent growth over the year-ago period.
   Trade balance remained tilted in favour of Dhaka with exports from Bangladesh registering about 27 per cent growth over the same period of last year, according to data of US foreign trade division.
   During January-April period of 2006, Bangladesh’s exports to the USA amounted to $991.8 million against the import of $123.3 million, pushing the trade balance at $868.5 million in favour of Dhaka.
   In the same period of 2005, Dhaka’s total export to Washington was $794 million while the import stood at $109.7 million.
   The rosy picture, however, is overshadowed by a significant fall seen in April on month-to-month basis. Export to US market dropped to $227 million in April 2006 from $275.8 million in March.
   The data of Bangladesh’s Export Promotion Bureau also showed some decline in apparel export to the single largest destination.
   During January-March period of 2006, total readymade garments export to US dropped to $632.9 million from $648.6 million in October-December period of 2005.
   Export of knitwear declined to $133 million in first quarter of 2006 from $160.9 million in last quarter of 2005.
   On the other hand, export of woven garments increased to $500 million from $487.7 million during the period.
   Again, the export to US dropped in February 2006 to 216.7 million from $272.4 million in January, reflecting a topsy-turvy trend in the Dhaka-Washington trade flow.
   The total volume of two-way trade between Bangladesh and USA amounted to $3.01 billion in 2005 with Dhaka enjoying a surplus trade of $2.37 billion.
   Dhaka’s trade surplus, however, does not come through an easy way as Bangladesh’s merchandises face high tariff wall to get into the coveted US market.
   Import tariffs on Bangladeshi products averaged 15.8 per cent whereas the rates ranged between less then one per cent and 2.5 per cent for imports from Norway, Canada, Sweden, Netherlands and UK.
   Bangladeshi products, on an average, faced 15.87 per cent above the tariff rates applied to countries with most favoured nations’ tags, which was 3.7 per cent in 2004.
   Bilateral trade has been witnessing a seesaw movement during the last six years, prompting Bangladesh government and industries to initiate hectic lobbying for the passage of a trade bill designed to give tariff benefit to some 14 exporting countries including Bangladesh.

Lafarge Surma Cement Ltd, a France-Bangladesh joint venture company, is expected to commence commercial production of cement by the end of August.
   The Greenfield company Wednesday informed the Dhaka Stock Exchange of its fresh production schedule in response to a query from the bourse.
   Earlier, it had missed four deadlines– December 2005, early 2006, May 2006 and June 2006.
   A portion of conveyor belt built for cross-border carriage of limestone for its Sylhet plant was damaged in fire in December 2005, delaying its production schedule, company sources said.
   The company raised Tk 15 crore from the public through initial public offerings in November 2003 floating 15 lakh shares and raised Tk 74.39 crore with the pre-IPO placement.
   Listed with the DSE and Chittagong Stock Exchange in 2003, the Greenfield company has been trading under G category and performing well since its listing. On Wednesday, closing price of the shares of the company was Tk 326 at DSE and Tk 324.25 at CSE.
   The CSE website reports on Wednesday that Lafarge Surma Cement Ltd has informed that development of limestone and shale quarries is completed. Quarry crushing plant and long belt conveyor have been commissioned and are fully operational.
   The 30MW power plant is fully operational and is supplying power to the cement plant. Portion of the long belt conveyor, which was damaged in December 2005, has been rebuilt and made fully operational since April 2006, the company said, reporting on its preparations for commercial production.
   Regular import of crushed limestone and shale through the long belt conveyor started from April 17 while trial production of clinker began in May 2006.
   ‘The process is expected to complete by July 2006 for clinker production. …production of cement is expected to start by August 2006,’ the website report said.

The commerce minister, Hafiz Uddin Ahmed, Thursday inaugurated new office of Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association in its own 16-storey building at Karwan Bazar.
   The BGMEA president Tipu Munshi, vice presidents of BGMEA Abdus Salam Murshedy and Shahadat Hossain Chowdhury, Shahidul Huq Sikhder, director of BGMEA Annisul Hoque and SM Fazlul Hoque were present.
   The 16-storey building of BGMEA complex is expected to be completed by next month.
   BGMEA bought the two bigha land at a cost of Tk 5 crore from Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) in September 1998 although they are yet to pay Tk 2.62 crore.

Global demand for oil will grow by 1.8 per cent in 2007 and increase by an average of 2.0 per cent annually during the five years to the end of 2011, the International Energy Agency forecast on Wednesday.
   The IEA said that the current high prices of crude oil were constraining demand, but that economic expansion in Asia and rising consumption in the Middle East would outweigh
   this effect during the period to 2011.
   Overall and in the medium term, increases in supplies of oil, mainly from OPEC countries, would outstrip increases in demand every year until 2010.
   This would would add spare capacity to the global production system, the IEA said.
   Oil traders have been concerned about a lack of spare capacity, or a so-called reserve capacity cushion, in the global system.
   In the last two years this cushion has been compressed and this has been one of the key drivers of rising prices.
   The assessments were published in two reports by the IEA, one being the regular monthly assessment of the oil market and the other a medium-term outlook.
   IEA executive director, Claude Mandil, said in a foreword to the medium-term report: ‘We believe this projected build in spare capacity to be a positive development that should bring greater stability to the oil market.’
   Spare capacity, the amount of oil that could be supplied above actual demand, is set to reach 4.0-6.0 million barrels per day in 2011 from the current ‘razor-thin levels’.
   ‘Much of this increase comes from recently announced OPEC investments to expand crude and natural gas liquids,’ Mandil underlined, adding that supplies of refined products were also projected to increase.

The sudden surge of legalising untaxed money towards the end of the last fiscal year points to the extent of corruption, which would be a key yardstick to measure the present government’s popularity in next elections, a senior development economist said.
   ‘The whitening of black money worth Tk 4,600 crore in the last fiscal year is a strong reflection of incremental corruption in the country,’ said Atiur Rahman, chairman of research group, Unnayan Shamannay.
   ‘The people will compare the previous and current regimes by measuring the level of corruption and price hikes,’ he said on Wednesday as the group’s wing, Shamunnay launched two budget easy readings targeting children and general readers at a function at the national press club in Dhaka Wednesday.
   Pubali Bank managing director Khondkar Ibrahim Khaled unveiled the covers of the books.
   Atiur said he did not support the money whitening scheme, but would have appreciated it if the amount was invested in
   areas like universities, hospitals and capital market. ‘That could bring some social benefits,’ he said.
   The budget made-easies were published as part of the organisation’s efforts for the last few years to present to readers a simplified version of national budget.
   ‘People have to understand the budget and for this they need some tips,’ said Ibrahim Khaled, appreciating the initiative of Shamunnay.

The European Commission slapped Microsoft Wednesday with a new fine of 280.5 million euros ($357.3M) for failing to fully respect a 2004 antitrust ruling for abusing its dominant market power.
   The European Union competition watchdog also warned that the US software giant faced additional fines of three million euros (3.82 million dollars) a day as of the end of the month if the company continued to defy the ruling.
   EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said that more than two years since the decision was handed down she now had ‘no alternative’ than to impose new fines, on top of a nearly half-billion-euro penalty in the original ruling.
   ‘No company is above the law. Any businesses operating in the EU must obey EU law,’ she said.
   Microsoft said Wednesday that it would appeal the European Commission’s decision to lodge a new fine against the company for not complying with a 2004 antitrust ruling. Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith said that ‘we do not believe any fine, let alone a fine of this magnitude, is appropriate given the lack of clarity in the commission’s original decision and our good-faith efforts over the past two years.
   ‘We will ask the European courts to determine whether our compliance efforts have been sufficient and whether the commission’s unprecedented fine is justified,’ he added.
   Wednesday’s fine was calculated on the basis of 1.5 million euros a day, backdated to December 15, the day that Brussels stopped the clocks for Microsoft to comply.
   Microsoft has already paid dearly for its standoff with the European Commission, which levied a record fine of 497 million euros on the company in March 2004.

The executive committee on national economic council on Wednesday approved eight-development projects involving Tk 3,256 crore.
   Of the total, Tk 1474 crore will be financed from local source, while the remaining amount is expected from development partners and multilateral lenders.
   The prime minister, Khaleda Zia, presided over the meeting attended by cabinet members including the finance and planning minister, M Saifur Rahman and the LGRD minister, Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan.
   The ‘hygiene, sanitation and water supply project’ will be implemented across the 64 districts at a cost of Tk 265 crore, meeting sources said.
   The Tista barrage (second phase), first unit project will cost of Tk 227 crore.
   Other approved projects include second rural infrastructure development project at a cost of Tk 1738 crore, water supply, sanitation and drainage program for Sylhet and Barishal city corporation at a cost of Tk 50 crore, water supply and sanitation program in coastal area involving Tk 98 crore, gas distribution network programme for Rajshahi town and its adjacent area at a cost of Tk 112 crore, Bheramara-Khulna gas distribution project through pipeline at a cost of Tk 685 crore and gas supply project for Chandpur 150 megawatt power station at a cost of Tk 80 crore.
   Saiur, after the meeting said the block allocation earmarked in the annual development programme for 2006-2007 will be the source of local fund, he said, responding to media criticism over keeping a huge block allocation in the current budget without specifying where the money would be spent.

Three leasing companies and one insurance company are going to raise a total of Tk 53.2 crore from the capital market through initial public offerings.
   The Securities and Exchange Commission last month approved the IPO applications of the four companies. LankaBangla Finance Ltd will float 90 lakh shares on August 6-10 to raise Tk 9 crore with face value of each share Tk 10.
   Bangladesh Industrial Finance Company Ltd will float 11.90 lakh shares during its IPO subscription period from August 20 to 24 to raise Tk 11.90 crore with face value of each share of Tk 100.
   From September 24 to 28, Industrial Promotion & Develop-ment Company of Bangladesh will float 13.90 lakh shares of Tk 100 each with a premium of Tk 100 to raise Tk 27.80 crore. Prime Islamic Life Insurance will float 4.50 lakh shares of Tk 100 each to raise Tk 4.50 crore during subscription period from November 26 to 30.

Indian Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said Wednesday that a series of deadly train blasts in Mumbai, the country’s economic hub, will not pull down the country’s fast growing economy.
   ‘This kind of cowardly and dastardly act will not break our will and resolve to move forward,’ Chidambaram told reporters in New Delhi, after seven blasts on crowded evening commuter killed at least 183 people Tuesday.
   Chidambaram said the country’s growth story was intact with industrial and manufacturing growth remaining strong and that investors were confident in the economy which is growing at about 8.0 per cent.
   The share market rose Wednesday despite the blasts, with the benchmark 30-share Mumbai stock exchange Sensex index up 268.80 points or 2.50 per cent to 10,880.19 in late afternoon trade.

Sri Lanka Wednesday expressed its strong willingness to have bilateral FTA and direct flights with Bangladesh to promote trade and investment on a win-win situation.
   ‘We’re in negotiations with the Bangladesh government on FTA and we’re hopeful it’ll be materialised,’ new Sri Lankan High Commissioner Vadivel Krishnamoorthy told a press briefing at the High Commission marking its first-ever single country fair beginning here today.
   He said Sri Lanka has bilateral FTA with India and Pakistan. ‘Our experience with India shows that bilateral trade has increased manifold with the signing of FTA following reduction of tariff,’ he said, adding that Sri Lanka and Bangladesh could also be benefited with the deal.
   The High Commissioner also suggested direct flights between Dhaka and Colombo to enhance business and people-to-people contact.
   Despite hectic negotiations in the past, there has not been a consensus on the proposed air route as Sri Lankan airlines prefers to operate through Colombo-Kolkata-Dhaka. ‘ A direct flight is necessary and we’ve to overcome the problem,’ the envoy said.
   Two-way trade that now stands at around $23 million is in favour of Sri Lanka. In 2005, Colombo’s export to Dhaka was $15.5 million against its import of $8.87 million.
   Krishnamoorthy said entrepreneurs of the two countries could explore joint venture in promising areas like leather and rubber.
   On the 4-day Single Country Trade Show to be held at Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Center, he said this first-ever trade show reflects
   Sri Lankan interest in promoting bilateral trade with Bangladesh.
   Some 35 Sri Lankan exhibitor will showcase Sri Lankan products, services and education programmes in about 40 stalls.
   ‘This trade show will greatly contribute to exploring new avenues of trade and commerce and to help forge greater trade links between businesspeople of both sides,’ the envoy said.
   Secretary to Sri Lankan Ministry of Investment Promotion Thosapala Hewage and Additional Secretary of BOI Dr Bandula Perera also spoke at the briefing.
   At the Trade Show, herbal product companies will provide free facial to Bangladeshi consumers and Sri Lankan Tea Board will offer a cup of famous ‘Ceylon Tea’ to each visitor.

Speakers at a consultation stressed the need for creating opportunities for involving non-resident Bangladeshis in the development process of the country.
   Mahmudur Rahman, executive chairman of the Board of Investment and energy advisor stated that an important
   segment of the earnings of the NRBs remain outside the
   country and efforts are to be made to tap this important resource.
   He said so far NRB investments have focused on services sector and the important challenge is to direct them to the manufacturing sector.
   He was speaking as the chief guest at a dialogue on “Opportunities and Challenges of NRB investment: Experiences of the Nandan Group” held at the British Council auditorium on Tuesday.
   The session was organised by the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit of Dhaka University in collaboration with the British Council under the project Transnationalism and Development.
   The keynote speaker, Masrur Choudhury, CEO and chairman of the Nandan Group, said that NRBs are interested in establishing effective links with their home country.
   Although political unrest, bureaucratic tangles and corruption may have some impacts to dampen such interest, the biggest hindrance is the mindset of the NRBs, he observed. Narrating the experiences of the Nandan Group he said finding reliable partner in Bangladesh and firm commitment has been the key to the success of the group.
   The growth of Nandan Group has been an eye opener for many NRBs, Choudhury added.
   Abbas Uddin Ahmed, managing director of the City Bank Limited, urged the NRBs to use official channels for sending remittance. He also called on the government to develop new financial instruments and opportunities to facilitate NRB investment.
   Among others, June Rollinson, director of the British Council, Helen de Gier and Bharat Joshi of the British High Commission and C R Abrar of RMMRU participated in the discussion that was moderated by Tasneem Siddiqui of Dhaka University.

Visiting four-member delegation of Japan International Training Co-operation (JITCO) Wednesday expressed keen interest to appoint more Bangladeshi industrial workers in Japan.
   The delegation expressed its interest when it called on State Minister for Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment Lutfur Rahman Khan Azad at his office, an official handout said.
   Led by JITCO senior vice-president Kagefumi Uneo, it lauded the skills and quality of the Bangladeshi workers. Under the agreement signed by Bangladesh and JITCO in 2005, a total of 12 trainee workers went to Japan free of costs.
   The state minister said the epoch-making agreement, which was signed by the present four party alliance government, has opened a new horizon in exporting trainee workers to Japan.
   He hoped that the existing friendly relations between the two countries will be strengthened in the years to come.
   Secretary of the ministry Ashfaq Hamid and senior officials were present.

The Power Development Board has sought a payment of Tk 200 crore from DESCO share trading, against a huge amount of overdue electricity bills, as the PDB is now sinking under the weight of its own debt burden.
   According to official sources, the PDB in a letter has urged the Power Ministry to order Dhaka Electric Supply Authority (DESA) to pay the amount from the share-trading account of Dhaka Electric Supply Company (DESCO).
   DESCO, a subsidiary of the DESA, started operation on the country’s stock market on June 18 through floating its huge shares for the public.
   In the letter sent to the Power Division on July 5, the PDB mentioned that as of April ‘06, it had outstanding power bills worth Tk 8,601 crore due from the DESA.
   Of the amount, Tk 3,530 crore is the principal while the rest Tk 5,071 crore accrued to it as surcharge.
   DESA purchases electricity, usually on credit, from PDB to operate its distribution business in the capital Dhaka and its adjoining areas.
   But the ailing state-owned behemoth, PDB, itself is now gasping under a debt burden of Tk 1,047 crore as well as a severe liquidity crisis.
   In the petition to the ministry, it mentioned its woes owing to the debt it owes to different public and private organisations as well as the liquidity crisis.
   Of the dues, independent power producers (IPP) get Tk 470.42 crore from PDB as outstanding power bills, Petrobangla Tk 384.82 crore as gas bills and Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) Tk 58 crore as gas bills while unpaid supplier’s credits amount to Tk 109.14 crore.
   Expressing its inability to bear the large liabilities, the leading organisation in power sector said the IPPs have already decided to suspend their power production following PDB’s incapacity, and this was communicated to the ministry.
   Making a fervent call to the ministry for ordering the DESA to pay Tk 200 crore, PDB authorities said that as per government decision, the DESA was created out of PDB assets and liabilities and then DESCO was created with the assets and liabilities of the DESA.
   “In reality, the entire assets and liabilities of DESCO belong to the PDB which is now lying with the government. So, the amount gained from the share trading of DESCO should ultimately go into the PDB account,” the PDB claimed in the letter.
   The sources told UNB staff writer Sadrul Hasan that the PDB is gradually heading for going bankrupt following its “financial mismanagement”.
   An official of the PDB said the organisation has to incur a loss of Tk 700 crore per annum due to sales of electricity at lower rates than the production costs.
   It sells per unit of electricity at Tk 2.17 while its production cost is Tk 2.42, on account of state subsidy given for supplying power to the public at affordable tariff rates.
   A major portion of the loss accounts for its purchase of electricity from the IPPs at higher rates than that of sale rates to the consumers.
   An add-on to the mismatch is the ‘system loss’ (euphemism of theft) of the PDB, still as high as about 23 per cent.
   As such, for its rescue from the collapse, the PDB already has sought a budgetary support from the government.

United International University recently arranged a seminar on IT at its own campus at Dhanmondi on topic of the seminar ‘Nobobangla: A conjunct-free writing system for Bangla’.
   Shah Mohammed Musa, design validation engineer of the Intel Corporation, California, USA, presented the keynote paper. The pro-vice chancellor of UIU, Professor Chowdhury Mofizur Rahman, chaired the seminar.
   Musa gave details of the conjuncts (or ligatures) which are a fundamental issue for our Bangle script (or Lipi), as it is for any other Brahmi script (e.g., Devanagari, Gujarati, Malayalam, Kannada, etc).
   The conjuncts not only make our script, very complex and difficult for any use, but also render the script to stay undefined and open ended.
   For example, one is unable to definitively answer the question, exactly how many conjunct characters we have in the Bangla script.
   By doing away with the conjuncts we make the scripts not only very simple, but also fully defined (or closed ended).
   This seminar presented a complete script of a conjunct-free writing system for Bangla, named as Nobobangla. Nobobangla can be viewed as a new spelling update to the existing Bangla words.
   The alphabet set of the Nobabangla script and the rules to convert any Bangla word into Nobobangla format is described. Nobobangla is simple, direct, and easy to use in computing and in any other use.

A Bangladeshi owned company will set up a light engineering fabrication plant in Mongla Export Processing Zone.
   An agreement to this effect was signed between the Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority and the M/s. Noble House Steel and Engineering Company Ltd Tuesday.
   Prasanta Bhushan Barua, member of BEPZA, and Manwar Hossain, managing director of Noble House Steel and Engineering Company, signed the lease agreement on behalf of their respective organizations.

The United States and Russia are close to a deal that would enable Moscow to join the WTO, and an accord could be signed just ahead of a July 15-17 Group of Eight summit, Russian officials and a US business leader have said.
   Russia has already reached bilateral agreements with its other key trading partners in the WTO and now needs the green light from the United States in order to join the World Trade Organization in the spring of 2007.
   ‘We’re very confident we’ll sign a bilateral agreement on the WTO at the G8 or before,’ Andrew Somers, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia told journalists Tuesday.
   ‘We believe an engagement with Russia’ at the WTO is preferable to ‘keeping Russia outside.’
   US President George W. Bush on Monday said he was ‘optimistic’ that a deal could be done with Russia following negotiations he described as ‘difficult.’
   ‘It’s in our country’s interest to have Russia as a member of the WTO,’ he said.
   Bush and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are to due to meet in Saint Petersburg on Friday ahead of a summit with the leaders of Britian, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan.
   The visit to Russia on Wednesday of US Trade Representative Susan Schwab is ‘a good sign’ and would appear to indicate that negotiations were drawing to a close, said Alexei Portanksi, a spokesman for Russia’s efforts on WTO accession.
   Added Russian Economic Development Minister German Gref in a report carried Monday by the Itar-Tass news agency: ‘We’re going to try to do it before the summit.’
   The Russian daily Kommersant has said Russia and the United States have found a compromise on trade questions, with their presidents expected to approve the deal on Friday barring last-minute political complications.
   It said Washington had reportedly dropped its insistence that foreign banks be authorized to open branches directly in Russia. At present they are required to register subsidiaries under Russian law.
   At the same time, according to Kommersant, the United States is no longer pressing for more Russian efforts to protect intellectual property.
   In exchange, it added, Russia would agree to open its insurance market and would not increase its subsidies to the agricultural sector.
   Irritated by new US demands that were deemed to be political in nature, Putin on July 4 warned that Russia would no longer feel bound to respect WTO trade rules if it were not formally admitted to the organization.
   Russia has been negotiating its WTO membership since 1993 and today remains the only major power outside the Geneva-based body.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will push for progress on the ailing Doha round of world trade talks at this weekend’s G8 summit, he told Wednesday’s Financial Times newspaper.
   Trade is not on the formal agenda at the Group of Eight industrial powers’ gathering in Saint Petersburg, but Lula insisted the issue was unavoidable, in an interview with the British business daily.
   ‘It is not possible that the presidents of the most important countries in the world can meet and the most important subject in the world not be discussed,’ he told the FT.
   Brazil has long championed the idea of a world summit to pull the talks on lifting barriers to trade in agriculture, industrial goods and services out of a rut that has hampered real progress for nearly five years.
   The leaders of China, India and Brazil will attend a special meeting on Monday with leaders of the G8 countries—Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, hosts Russia and the United States.
   But Lula said a seperate meeting could take place without Russia, which is not yet part of the World Trade Organisation.
   ‘We have to do it, even if it’s only for a two-hour meeting,’ said Lula.
   ‘Our representatives are snookered... so the leaders have to say whether they want (progress) or not.’
   The Brazilian president praised US President George W. Bush, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, for what he described as their sympathetic stance towards an agreement under the Doha round of trade talks.
   But he had stronger words for French President Jacques Chirac, who had a ‘much tougher position defending his French farmers, and his position counts for a lot in Europe.’
   Lula stressed the need for the European Union to reduce barriers to agricultural imports and for the United States to slash farm subsidies.
   He also welcomed Venezuela’s entry into the Mercosur trade pact of South America and talked down fears on the continent about the growing influence of the anti-US Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
   Lula said he and Argentinian President Nestor Kirchner had pressed the radical Chavez to ‘take the tension’ out of international relations.
   ‘I talk a lot with President Chavez about the need to behave in a way that doesn’t create problems for other countries,’ he told the FT.
   Lula reckoned the United States and Venezuela needed each other.

The US budget deficit is projected to fall to 296 billion dollars for the current fiscal year, down sharply from earlier projections, President George W. Bush said Tuesday.
   Unveiling a mid-year budget review, Bush said surging tax revenues from economic growth would help reduce the deficit, compared with last year’s White House projection of a 423-billion-dollar budget shortfall.
   The president, facing sagging approval ratings on several fronts, hailed the news as validation of his economic policies.
   ‘The economic growth fueled by tax relief has helped send our tax revenues soaring,’ Bush said at the White House, noting that revenues are expected to increase 11 per cent, or 246 billion dollars, in the current fiscal year.
   ‘The increase in tax revenues is much better than we had projected, and it’s helping us cut the budget deficit.’
   The deficit for the 2006 fiscal year to September 30 would be only marginally lower than the 318-billion-dollar gap in the prior fiscal year. But the projections had been higher due to increased spending, notably for the war in Iraq and the recovery from Hurricane Katrina.
   In January, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office forecast a US budget deficit of 337 billion dollars for the fiscal year ending on September 30.
   The latest projections would represent about 2.3 per cent of US gross domestic product, according to Bush, compared with 3.2 per cent of GDP under the last White House projection.

China’s efforts to rein its runaway economy have had little effect and a further interest rate hike is the only choice available to the central bank, a leading state-run newspaper said Wednesday.
   The China Securities Journal argued in a front-page story that a rate hike was ‘a practical choice’ for officials facing the challenge of carrying out effective macro-economic controls.
   ‘Excess liquidity has an impact on the real economy, bringing about the risk of inflation and asset bubbles,’ the newspaper said. ‘Going forward, an interest rate hike is the only choice available to the central bank.’
   Several economists agreed that a further interest rate hike was among the measures China now had to consider as the economy continues to bound along with growth rates above 10 per cent.
   ‘The tightening of the past couple of months hasn’t been enough to curb overheating in investment,’ said Qu Hongbin, a Hong Kong-based economist with HSBC. ‘It must adopt even more decisive measures to curb credit.’

Singapore said Wednesday it will share the city-state’s expertise with interested foreign governments in areas such as airport management, education systems and homeland security through a newly formed company.
   The not-for-profit Singapore Cooperation Enterprise (SCE) will be the main vehicle for the city-state’s public sector to share its experiences and expertise, a joint statement by the foreign and trade ministries said.
   In the past three years, Singapore received more than 100 requests from foreign governments for assistance in airport management, education systems, e-government infrastructure and homeland security, the statement said.
   ‘We expect demand for such expertise to rise over the next 5-10 years,’ said SCE vice chairman Peter Ong, also the permanent secretary for trade and industry. ‘We estimate the global market size for public sector services to be worth billions and capturing even a small slice of this is an attractive prospect.’

China and India are leading a revolution in the shopping centre industry in Asia but investors must have the business acumen, stamina and money to navigate regional markets, industry players said Wednesday.
   Driven by strong economic growth and rising disposable incomes, hundreds of shopping malls have sprouted across the region, many of them dwarfing their counterparts in the United States.
   The increase in the number of real estate investment trusts (REITS) had also helped power the boom as it made financing easier, a conference on the industry heard. The number of REITS in Asia outside Japan is currently at 39, up from only five in 2002.
   The growth in the shopping mall industry is ‘too fast to be considered an evolution, it’s too widespread to be considered a mere growth spurt,’ said Morgan Parker, the Hong Kong-based president of industry specialist Taubman Asia.
   ‘Our industry continually demonstrated the carnage and chaos of what you see in a revolution. Our industry is tracking an economic trajectory in Asia that is simply unprecedented in modern history,’ he told the conference.
   Four shopping malls in China are now larger than the Mall of America in Minnesota which measures 4.2 million square feet (378,000 square metres), said Pua Seck Guan, chief executive of CapitaMall Trust Management Ltd.
   CapitaMall Trust manages Singapore’s largest listed real estate investment trust by asset size and is part of property giant CapitaLand Group.
   By 2010, China is expected to be home to at least seven of the world’s 10 biggest shopping centres, Pua added.
   China, India and Japan will be CapitaLand’s key focus countries outside of the Singapore home market, Pua said.
   CapitaLand already operates 15 malls in Singapore, 30 in China, four in Japan and one in Malaysia with a combined area of more than 23 million square feet (2 million square metres).
   Despite the shopping centre construction binge, the penetration of organised retail trade
   in Asia remains low, with just 20 per cent in China and two per cent in India, Pua added, reflecting the region’s enormous potential.
   Alexander Berman of US shopping centre specialist General Growth Properties, Inc, said his company is also looking for opportunities in Asia, in particular China and India.
   ‘We’re not in Asia yet but we’re certainly looking very actively here,’ he told the conference.
   The speakers however cautioned that there are also challenges for foreign investors as they deal with the intricacies of doing business in some countries in the region.
   ‘You must know your sums and you must know your rentals... It’s hard work,’ Pua said, referring to the Chinese market.

South Korean farmers, who have a track record of violent demonstrations, on Wednesday joined a massive rally aimed at torpedoing ongoing US-South Korea talks on a free trade agreement.
   Polcie said more than 70,000 people, including 13,000 farmers, rallied in a plaza in downtown Seoul on the third straight day of anti-FTA demonstrations.
   The presence of farmers, who have violently protested trade deals in the past, alerted riot police who set up tight cordon lines made up of hundreds of buses. Police searched and seized sticks from the protesters.
   ‘Stop the US-South Korean FTA!’ read a large banner carried by protesters marching in drizzle towards Seoul’s city hall.
   Miles away from the protest rally, negotiators from the United States and South Korea have been holding difficult talks since Monday at a heavily-guarded hotel on striking a free trade agreement.
   The pact, if agreed, would be the biggest US free trade deal since the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994.
   The United States and South Korea, the world’s largest and Asia’s fourth-largest economies, have aimed to strike an FTA in March next year.
   There have been no signs of progress in the negotiations, which follow a first round in Washington last month. The talks last until Friday.

A US grand jury on Tuesday indicted three people on a charge of conspiring to steal trade secrets of beverage giant Coca-Cola Co and sell them to rival PepsiCo Inc.
   The three, including a former Coca-Cola administrative assistant, pleaded not guilty in the case at a hearing in Atlanta.
   US Judge Joel Feldman ordered Ibrahim Dimson, 30, of New York and Edmund Duhaney, 43, of Decatur, Georgia, held without bond. Joya Williams, a 41-year-old administrative assistant of Norcross, Georgia, who worked for the director of global brand marketing at Coca-Cola, is free on bond pending trial.
   The indictment charges the trio with conspiracy to steal trade secrets, a charge that carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years and a fine of up to $250,000.

Most Japanese still want the head of the country’s central bank to resign over his controversial investments, a new poll showed Wednesday just two days ahead of a key decision on interest rates.
   Some 72 per cent of respondents to a survey by the Yomiuri Shimbun daily said Bank of Japan governor Toshihiko Fukui should step down over his links to the fund of Yoshiaki Murakami, a former bureaucrat accused of insider trading.
   Some 81 per cent said they cannot fully accept Fukui’s explanation of events.
   The poll results were released on the eve of a two-day policy meeting at the central bank during which Fukui is widely expected to propose increasing interest rates for the first time in nearly six years.
   Fukui has not broken any laws nor the central bank’s own internal rules but he has taken flack for the timing of his decision in February to pull out his investment—just ahead of the end to the BoJ’s ultra-loose monetary policy.

The co-head of European aerospace firm EADS admitted the company had clearly underestimated archrival Boeing and said the priority was to fix problems at its Airbus unit, which is trailing its US competitor in plane sales.
   Airbus’s A350, which is being redesigned to compete with Boeing’s faster-selling 787 mid-sized model, had to be a superior aircraft, Enders told media at a briefing for select Stuttgart-based journalists late on Tuesday in comments embargoed for Wednesday.
   He added that Airbus was not under time pressure and said the timing of a decision on the design of the A350 was not linked to next week’s Farnborough Air Show, traditionally a showcase for the industry.

Indian stocks rose 1.3 per cent in morning trading Wednesday, recovering from an early drop, following a series of train bombings that rocked the country’s financial capital. Upbeat earnings from software company Infosys Technologies helped lift the market.
   Just before noon, the benchmark index of the Bombay Stock Exchange, the 30-share Sensex, was up 137.58 points, or 1.3 per cent, to 10,752.
   The index fell as much as 0.3 per cent in the first half-hour of trading, far less than analysts had feared following Tuesday evening’s bombings that killed at least 190 people and injured hundreds more.
   The market was supported by better-than-expected quarterly earnings reported by Infosys Technologies Ltd., which boosted most technology shares.
   Infosys said its net profit jumped 50.4 per cent in the April-June quarter to 8 billion rupees ($173 million), driven by strong growth in outsourcing orders. It also raised its revenue and earnings forecast for the fiscal year through March 2007.

The Saigon Thuong Tin Commercial Bank, or Sacombank, on Wednesday became the first bank to list on Vietnam’s stock exchange, boosting the value of the nascent market by more than half.
   Sacombank’s shares closed at 78,000 dong (4.88 dollars), giving the bank a market value of 927 million dollars and making it the largest of the 41 companies now listed on the six-year-old Ho Chi Minh City stock exchange.
   The share had opened Wednesday at 65,000 dong but quickly rose, staying only slightly below the bank’s target of about 81,000 dong. They were little changed from prices seen in informal trade before the official listing.
   More than 763,000 Sacombank shares were traded Wednesday.
   Vietnam’s financial sector has been dominated by state banks, many saddled with bad loans, but the sector is set to face stiff foreign competition when Vietnam joins the World Trade Organisation, a move expected later this year.

Asian demand spurs Nokia sales
Robust demand for new cellphones in emerging markets in Asia is expected to lift second-quarter profits and sales at Nokia, the world’s largest handset maker. Nokia’s net sales for April-June are on average projected to rise 21 percent from last year to 9.76 billion euros ($12.4 billion). The Finnish firm, which sells more than a third of all phones across the world, is seen benefiting from its early entry in emerging markets, where its broad line-up of easy-to-use, cheap models has given it more than a 50 percent share in many countries.
— Reuters

TG to fly from
Busan to Phuket
Flag carrier Thai Airways International said Wednesday it will launch direct flights from South Korea’s second largest city of Busan to Thailand’s holiday isle of Phuket to meet rising tourism demand. The twice-weekly flights will begin in October, just before the start of Thailand’s peak travel season in November, the airline said. ‘We are starting the flights due to strong demand from South Korean tourists,’ a company official said.
— AFP

POSCO’s Q2 profit down 43pc
POSCO, the world’s fifth-largest steel producer, said Wednesday its second-quarter net profit fell 43.7 per cent from a year earlier to 710 billion won (746 million dollars). Operating profit slumped 45.6 per cent year-on-year to 941.5 billion won in the three months to June and sales slipped 13.1 per cent to 4.67 trillion won. The second quarter operating profit was higher than the market consensus of 898 billion won (945 million dollars) as the global market enjoyed better prices in the second quarter than in the first.
— AFP