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As south Asia enjoys unprecedented economic growth, soaring summer temperatures have highlighted a chronic shortage of electricity that is crippling enterprise and leaving millions to suffer without any hope of respite.
   From India, the world’s second fastest growing major economy after China, to Bangladesh, which has enjoyed five per cent annual growth since the early 1990s, governments are plagued by the problem of growing demand for power combined with inadequate supply.
   In Bangladesh, where nearly half the 140 million population still gets by on less than a dollar a day, the anger of farmers unable to get power to irrigate their crops has led to violent clashes and the death of at least 17 people.
   Meanwhile business leaders have warned that the shortages threaten the nearly 20 per cent growth in the garment industry. The sector constitutes more than three-fourths of the country’s total exports.
   Earlier this month almost half of Bangladesh was plunged into darkness for several hours as the national electricity grid tripped shutting down most of the country’s power generation units.
   With polls scheduled for next January, the government is keenly aware that power will be a key election issue.
   Last week, the prime minister, Khaleda Zia, removed power minister Iqbal Hasan Mahmud and reassigned him as a junior minister for agriculture, a week after he announced it would take at least three years to ease the power shortfall.
   Earlier he told AFP that lack of investment was the main reason for the crisis, predicting that problems would increase over the next two years with demand continually increasing but with no new generation plants due to come on line.
   The country’s average shortfall is 700-800 megawatts daily rising on occasions to up to 1,800 megawatts, nearly half of output.
   Experts say South Asian nations are failing to add the capacity needed to keep up with economic growth, pointing out that China adds more than 28,000 megawatts of capacity on average annually compared to only 4,500 megawatts in India.
   ‘People don’t understand that it’s a 50-year-old problem and it will not go (away) overnight,’ the Bangladeshi minister said before his removal.
   ‘The World Bank did not invest in the country’s power generation since 1986. Yet we need at least 2.7 billion dollars in funding immediately to improve the power generation and distribution system and the government alone cannot mobilise that sort of funding.’
   India has been hailed for its rapid development but critics say it has no viable strategy to tackle its power problems
   In parts of the Indian capital Delhi residents are left to swelter for up to ten hours at a stretch. Temperatures hit the mid-40s Celsius during May and June.
   In some rural areas there is electricity for only two hours a day or none at all. Less than 50 per cent of households nationwide have access to electricity compared with 97 per cent in China.
   Experts blame bureaucracy, policy uncertainty and lack of political will and say some 47 power plants are behind schedule.
   Lack of capacity combined with soaring demand also afflicts Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest industrial city, where frequent cuts hamper industrial production.
   ‘Industry is suffering billions of dollars losses due to poor electrictiy services,’ said M.A. Jabbar, vice president of the Federation of Pakistan Chamber of Commerce and Industries.
   ‘This is not only adding to the cost of production. We are (also) compelled to face export orders cancellations,’ he said.
   Pakistan enjoyed a power surplus until last year but this year it is faced with a daily shortfall of 415 megawatts expected to rise to 1,457 megawatts next year.
   Although there are plans to install as many as 45 hydro and thermal power projects with a capacity of about 12,000 mw, they are expected to take years to become operational.
   ‘I don’t think the government will be able to get them installed quickly and we see the power scenario moving from bad to worse,’ said Syed Shahnawaz Nadir, research analyst at Noaman Abid Securities.
   Sri Lanka is struggling to cope with an eight to 10 per cent annual increase in demand forcing the country to turn to expensive thermal power.
   ‘Insufficient capacity, resulting from excessive delays in the implementation of power generation expansion and the non-implementation of low cost, large-scale power sources, such as coal power, has led to a high electricity tariff and frequent power shortage,’ the Central Bank said in a recent report.
   Nearly a fifth of the country is still without electricity.
   Demand is increasing at a similar rate in Nepal.
   Blackouts earlier this year affected some areas for up to 42 hours per week as low levels of water in hydro-power reservoirs resulted in demand vastly outstripping supply.
   ‘I felt like we had gone back to the dark ages. Normal life was really disturbed,’ said Sabita Shrestha, a 19-year old management student from Kathmandu.
   Experts say that without added capacity there are no quick fixes.
   Instead, they urge governments and private citizens to do everything they can to save power from changing working hours to avoid the hottest part of the day and closing shops and businesses by 5:00 pm.

Women in businesses need budgetary support and incentives to overcome the obstacles they face in running their ventures and marketing their products at home and abroad, said the president of Bangladesh Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
   Specific allocation should be there to ensure female entrepreneurs’ access to venture capital, since institutional lenders often overlook them. Commerce ministry, particularly the Export Promotion Bureau, and other relevant ministries including women affairs ministry and social welfare ministry should have some funds to respond to the needs of women in businesses.
   ‘Everybody speaks about female entrepreneurs. But nobody is there to tell where they will get the fund and necessary training, and where they will sell their products,’ said Selima Ahmad while talking to New Age.
   ‘Budget has no mention about women’s enterprises. Women appear in the budget speech only when it comes to distressed women in need of social safety,’ she said.
   She stressed that the annual fiscal blueprint must contain clear-cut guidelines for female entrepreneurs if the government really wants to empower women economically and socially.
   On May 24, the women’s chamber at a function in Dhaka demanded Tk 25 crore in bloc allocation in the next budget for development of woman entrepreneurship by ensuring their access to funds and technology.
   It also urged the government to establish a women’s entrepreneurship academy and a separate bank for women.
   ‘Apart from financial support, the female entrepreneurs need more training on various designs and supports for marketing their products,’ said Selima, whose chamber groups about 600 small and medium women entrepreneurs.
   The chamber also recommended that the government should raise the income tax exemption limit exclusively for women to Tk 3,00,000 and provide the female owners of the industrial units with tax holiday up to 10 years.
   ‘Since female entrepreneurs are mostly engaged with small and medium enterprises, the industrial and SME policies should reflect opportunities for the women,’ Selima added.
   The government should extend support to the women’s trade bodies so that they can do research and provide entrepreneurs with skill training and marketing supports, she said.
   EPB should have a special fund to help women join international trade fairs to look for markets of their products, she felt.
   Herself a successful businesswoman and industrialist, Selima also spoke about the fiscal measures which she felt would give a boost to local industries and make them competitive.
   There should be significant gap between import duties on finished goods and that on raw materials used in local industries, she stressed.
   ‘Cost of doing business is already high here and higher import duty on raw materials makes local products costlier and less competitive with imported ones,’ Selima pointed out.
   She referred to an artificial flower factory she runs that faced closure due to higher production cost. ‘We find imported flowers are cheaper than what we produce here, because duties on finished products are less than that on our raw materials.’
   Referring to minimum difference in import duties on CBU and CKD, she said, lower import duty on spare parts and completely knocked-down automobiles could gear up the local assembling industry, she believes.

The Common Fund for Commodities, an inter-governmental financial institution under the UN umbrella, is providing Bangladesh with assistance to diversify jute and other products by promoting entrepreneurship.
   Accordingly, a training programme for the weavers of Narsingdi under a four-year project styled Small Scale Entrepreneurship Development in Diversified Products at a cost of Tk 10 crore will be inaugurated today.
   Major objectives of this particular project, undertaken by the Textiles and Jute Ministry’s Jute Diversification Promotion Centre, are to create a model of diversified use of jute.
   Ali Mchumo, managing director of the common fund and a former minister of Tanzania, is scheduled to join the inaugural ceremony of the project implementation process in Narsingdi. His organisation gives the promotion centre an amount of Tk 4.83 crore grants and Tk 3.69 crore soft loan.
   The Textiles and Jute Minister, Shajahan Siraj, and high officials of the government are also expected to attend the function.
   The common fund has also provided assistance under a project on use of bamboo and another on jute-reinforced polythene for industrial application.
   The government finds its relevance in funding more projects on commodities such as tea, hides and skin, meat, fish, rice, rubber, sugar, potato, banana, pineapple, jackfruit and cut-flower, the commerce minister, Hafiz Uddin Ahmed, told Ali Mchumo as they met at the ministry on Sunday.
   The minister appreciated the role of the common fund in supporting the developing countries for diversifying commodity production and foreign trade and urged its managing director to use his good office to help least developed countries like Bangladesh to get market access of their various products to the developed countries.
   However, according to the design of the entrepreneurship development project, the local small entrepreneurs, who also will have equity partnership, are being assisted to set up a fibre treatment plant, a mini spinning plant, three small wet processing plants, six model handloom weaving plants, a model power-loom weaving plant, three raw materials banks and three jute entrepreneurs’ service centres.
   ‘It may be the beginning of establishing more training centres to promote jute and jute products,’ said ABM Abdullah, the executive director of the Jute Diversification Promotion Centre, which was founded in 2002. The centre has developed so far 222 technologies based on raw and processed jute.

Major indicators of the monetary and credit programmes, set by the Bangladesh Bank, have crossed their quarterly targets at the end of March 2006.
   The central bank statistics showed that broad money recorded an increase of Tk 16,649.60 crore or 11 per cent in the three quarters of the current fiscal year against the 8.8 per cent growth in the same period of last fiscal.
   The monetary policy statement, released in January this year, set Tk 1,64,900 crore as ceiling for outstanding broad money till March 2006.
   But, the outstanding stock of broad money amounted to Tk 1,68,238.1 crore at the end of March, revealed the central bank data. The year-on-year growth rate was 19.1 per cent, up from the monetary target of 16.9 per cent.
   ‘Money supply is a concern for us as inflationary pressure is there,’ said a senior official of the central bank.
   Of the components of broad money, currency outside banks rose by Tk 3,368.60 crore or 18.2 per cent and deposits increased by Tk 13,281 crore or 10 per cent, showed the central bank data.
   The central bank statistics also showed that domestic credit recorded an increase of Tk 18,693.60 crore or 12.7 per cent in the July-March period of current fiscal year.
   This amount of domestic credit expansion pushed the total stock of domestic credit to Tk 1,66,254.6 crore in March 2006 crossing the monetary target of Tk 1,60,300 crore for the period.
   At the end of March, the annual growth rate recorded 22.1 per cent again crossing the target growth rate of 19.9 per cent.
   The central bank attributed the credit growth to private sector growth as a major reason of overall domestic credit expansion.
   Net credit to the private sector amounted to Tk 13,975.8 crore in July-March period of current fiscal year, posting 12.6 per cent growth, showed the central bank statistics.
   The monetary programme set Tk 1,21,300 crore as ceiling for private sector credit stock for the end of March while the actual amount of outstanding credit stood at Tk 1,24,715 crore.
   The year-on-year growth at March stood at 17 percent against the target of 13.9 per cent.
   ‘Thus, the claim by the private sector that credit flow was squeezed is not fully true,’ said the central bank official.
   ‘Moreover, we never encourage the banks to restrict credit to productive sectors,’ he added.
   Central bank also appeared lax to some extent as net credit to the government was still within the limit set in the monetary programme.Government net borrowing from the banking system amounted to Tk 773.60 crore in July-March period pushing the total outstanding at Tk 26,406.3 crore which is well below the monetary target of Tk 27,900 crore.
   The programme also allowed the government to increase its borrowing rate up to 38.9 per cent while the actual rate at end-March recorded at 22.4 per cent.
   But, credit to the other public sector amounted to Tk 3944.20 crore during the three quarters of the current fiscal year and pushed the total outstanding at Tk 15,133.3 crore.
   On the other hand, monetary target was Tk 11,110 crore with growth rate of 56.8 per cent while actual growth rate was 58 per cent. The huge amount of borrowing by the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation was a major reason of big jump in credit flow to other public sector.

The owners and workers of local steel and re-rolling mills will stage a mass rally today at Muktangan in the city against a perceived move to give discriminatory facilities to India’s Tata Group for establishing a plant in this sector in Bangladesh.
   Bangladesh Steel Mill Owners Association and Bangladesh Re-rolling Mills Association will jointly organise the agitation as per decision of their recent joint general meeting. They will also stage a sit-in in front of the FBCCI Bhaban the same day.
   The local steel millers and re-rollers, particularly who produce MS rod, have been campaigning against the Tata’s steel-mill proposal fearing that it would be a great threat to their business as their Indian giant rival would produce the same products in larger volumes in an uneven competition.
   But Tata has been telling that it would produce only flat products, known as HR coil, which would never be harmful to the local steel producers.
   The local steel-millers also opposed Tata plea for providing uninterrupted gas supply for a 25-year period for its steel industry.

India, already the world’s fastest growing wireless services market, is set to become a handset manufacturing and export hub as giants such as Nokia and LG churn out millions of phones to tap voracious demand.
   Global handset firms are knocking on the door of Asia’s third-largest economy because of its established software industry, a booming domestic market and they want another manufacturing stronghold to offset the possible risk of operating plants in China.
   Nokia, which controls nearly half the $2.5 billion Indian handset market, and its suppliers are investing about $150 million in its Chennai unit, which makes a few million handsets a month and has already exported phones to south east Asian nations like Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand.
    ‘The growing markets are here—India, the Middle East and Africa. India is in the middle of these geographically and for us the transportation from India was easier and cheaper than from China or Europe,’ Jukka Lehtela, Nokia’s director for Indian operations, said.
   South Korean conglomerate LG Electronics Inc, for its part, operates a plant in the western city of Pune that will churn out 20 million GSM and CDMA handsets by 2010, roughly half of which are earmarked for export.
   ‘We are already exporting in excess of 10,000 units a month and we can see it growing to 50,000 a month in less than a year,’ said H.S. Bhatia, product group head for GSM phones at LG.

Kuwait is in talks with Bangladesh over the possibility of building storage facilities there, mostly likely for refined petroleum products, a Kuwait Petroleum Corporation official said Saturday.
   ‘We are talking to them, we’ll have to see if this is something that makes economic sense, that is required for them. They are also a good customer of ours,’ said KPC’s chief executive officer Hani Hussain.
   Asked if it will be for crude or oil products storage, he said: ‘Most likely it will be products but we will be looking to see what it is they require; we’d like to do it in a way that helps them as well as help our marketing efforts.’
   KPC wants Dow Chemical Co and either British Petroleum or Shell as its partners in a joint-venture refinery project in China that Kuwait is considering to help build.
   Kuwait said in December it agreed with China to study setting up the joint venture refinery and petrochemical complex between PetroChina and a unit of state-run Kuwait Petroleum Corp.
   The plant is estimated to cost about $5 billion.
   ‘It will probably involve Dow as well as one of the international oil companies,’ Hussain said.
   Hussain said Dow was a strategic partner to Kuwait in the EQUATE Petrochemical Company in the Gulf Arab state. Last year, KPC signed a deal with Royal Dutch Shell to work together in China while KPC’s overseas unit Kuwait Petroleum International penned a deal with BP for investments in China.
   The plant’s capacity would be 200,000-300,000 bpd.
   ‘It’s a joint-venture refinery as well as petrochemical complex and we are looking at details ... the location is probably going to be in Guangdong (province),’ Hussain added.
   KPC said in December project studies and approvals will be completed in 2006 while the building will need four years.

Country’s 58 percent software developing companies exports software in the international market.
   Of these companies, 10 percent are fully export oriented and 48 percent sells their products both in local and foreign markets.
   Executive Director of Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) Dr AM Choudhury told the news agency that the major customers of locally developed software are the government, banks, trading house and education sector.
   He said that Bangladesh with its large human resource has the potential and prospect to tap the opportunities for capturing the international market. Since 1985, Bangladesh software companies are engaged in developing software for local and foreign markets.
   In the last few years, a few companies have developed and exported software as par specifications of USA and European clients. Currently, Bangladesh software is being exported to some 30 foreign countries, he added.
   ‘The main types of customer support services provided by the farms are software upgradation, after sale services, consulting, training hardware requirement, system integration, installation’, Dr. Chowdhury said.
   Another source in the Bangladesh Bank said that the total amount of IT exports increased from 2.24 Million US dollar in 2000-01 to 12.68 million US dollar in 2004-05. Out of the 12.68 million US dollar 9.64 million dollar came from software export and rest of the amount came from data processing and computer consultancy.
   President of Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Service (BASIS) Sarwar Alam said that there have been a number of joint venture collaboration contacts between some Danish companies and Bangladeshi software firm for exporting software and IT services in European market which keep the growth rate at the present level.
   Moreover, ICT Business Promotion Council (IBPC) of ministry of commerce has opened up a much-required marketing office at Silicon Valley in California, USA. Some of the big software companies are in the process of opening up their own marketing office in North America and Europe, said the sources.
   According to a study, there are mainly broad categories of software developed in Bangladesh like customized software, multimedia software, web enabled software and animation products.
   At present, some 33 firms in this sector are exporting software products from Bangladesh to 13 countries including Australia, Belgium, Bhutan, Canada, Cyprus, Dubai, Germany, France, Netherlands, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Vietnam, Sudan, UK and USA. The largest volume of export goes to USA.

Australian High Commissioner Douglas Foskett Sunday said many Australian companies are now waiting to come here to invest in Bangladesh, especially in its energy sector.
   ‘But they are waiting for the final outcome of the Tata and Asian Energy proposals,’ he said.
   He was addressing as guest of honor the monthly luncheon meeting of the Foreign Investors’ Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) at a city hotel.
   Referring to the dillydallying in approval of these proposals he noted that these proposals have been hanging in the balance for a long time and it is ultimately frustrating existing and potential foreign investors.
   He also criticized Bangladeshi exporters for hang-up on the traditional markets—in a few western countries—instead of developing alternative ones.
   ‘Bangladeshi exporters have stuck to traditional markets. It seems that Bangladeshi exporters do not regard Australia, with only 20 million people, as a big enough market. It is important for Bangladesh to continue developing alternative markets,’ the diplomat advised.
   The High Commissioner said that ceramics, black goat leather, chemical fertilizer, jute and new products like biscuits, could easily meet the Rules of Origin level in Australia and attract duty-free entry.
   ‘We continue to encourage the Government of Bangladesh to develop flatter tariff structure and minimize the restrictive trade practices such as those associated with customs clearance,’ Foskett said, adding that Australian merchandise exports to Bangladesh – mainly food and manufacturers- continued to increase.
   He said Australia strongly encourages Bangladesh to export goods there and wants the volumes increased—and these can be much higher than at present.
   Responding to the Doha Ministerial declaration which encouraged industrialized countries to improve access for imports from Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Australia granted duty-and quota-free access of 49 LDCs, including Bangladesh, from July 1, 2003.
   ‘Australia’s initiative is comprehensive and unqualified. It does not exclude sensitive sectors or provide phasing-in arrangements for selected items,’ the Australian envoy told the FICCI members.
   He noted with frustration that Bangladeshi businesses and entrepreneurs had not taken up the attractive offer to extend their market access to Australia.
   ‘In 2002, Australia’s Productivity Commission undertook a study which showed that Bangladesh- being the largest Textile Clothing and Footwear exporter to Australia amongst the LDCs- accounted for around three quarters (75.4%) of textile, clothing and footwear imports to Australia from LDcs, and had the opportunity to have the maximum benefit from this preferential tariff removal,’ he said.
   The study predicted that Bangladesh could increase its clothing exports to Australia by between 2.5 and 11- fold.

A high-profile Malaysian trade delegation will arrive here on June 3 with significant investment proposals for sectors like port, infrastructure and chemical fertiliser.
   The 12-member delegation of Malaysian South- South Association (MSSA) and Malaysia Industrial Development Authority (MIDA) will stay in Bangladesh till June 7 processing the investment packages in consultation with government authorities.
   They will have discussion with the Commerce Minister, the Board of Investment (BoI), FBCCI, BEPZA, Export Promotion Bureau, Chittagong Chamber of Commerce and Industry and other chamber bodies.
   Secretary general of Bangladesh-Malaysia Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BMCCI) Syed Moazzam Hossain told UNB Sunday that the delegation would take a close look at the investment climate in the country and specifically seek to invest in Chittagong Seaport.
   ‘Malaysia has serious interest in investing for increasing the efficiency of Chittagong port. The delegation is likely to show their interest to the government during the upcoming visit,’ he said.
   The joint-chamber leader informed that the delegation would comprise some highly experienced investors and professionals, particularly for the port and infrastructure sector.
   The team, on the other hand, is likely to express their interest in investing in herbal medicine, industrial ventures like electronic and electrical industry, chemical fertilizer and agro-chemical sectors and expanding road communications network.
   Moazzam said that initially the delegation would inspect the investment situation and conduct a feasibility study. Following the study, they will come up with concrete investment proposals.
   Blaming the slow pace in government system, he said Malaysia earlier had offered Bangladesh to invest in setting up Dhaka-Chittagong expressway.
   ‘But the government could not grasp it due to its delay in taking decision,’ he alleged.

The approaching World Cup finals are stirring mutterings among some dealers and strategists about the potential negative impact the tournament could have on Asian markets.
   Unlike four years ago when the World Cup was held in Japan and South Korea, matches will not be in regular office hours here, meaning workers won’t be downing tools to watch.
   But with games broadcast across Asia late evening or in the early hours of the morning, there are concerns about bleary-eyed brokers turning up for work late, tired or not at all, and investors being too preoccupied to focus.
   ‘Trading will very likely slow down during the World Cup because investors are too busy watching the games,’ said Sukhbir Khanijoh, a senior market analyst at Trinity Securities in Bangkok.
   ‘They simply lack interest in stock trading during that time because the World Cup is hugely popular in Thailand.’
   During the 2002 World Cup (May 31-June 30), the Stock Exchange of Thailand slipped 4.34 percent.
   On days when popular teams are in action, like England or Brazil, the hit could be harder.
   In Singapore, when England played Nigeria at the last World Cup, turnover on the market plunged and the Straits Times Index fell 11 points on a lack of buying interest.
   When England played Brazil it was even worse, with shares traded plunging to the lowest level since the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, according to the business press here.

India’s rebel-hit northeast Assam state has welcomed a proposal by a private Thai airline to build an airport and resorts for a new Asian safari destination, the chief minister said Sunday.
   ‘Bangkok Airways is interested to build an airport and set up other tourism infrastructure facilities like resorts to make Assam an Asian safari zone,’ Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi told AFP.
   Bangkok Airways President Prasert Prasarthong-Osoth visited the state last year and said the Kaziranga National Park would fit in with the company’s plans to find new tourist destinations in Asia, Gogoi said.
   The 430-square-kilometre (172-square-mile) sanctuary is home to the endangered one-horned rhinoceros, Royal Bengal Tiger and Asian elephant.

The 28th meeting of the Shariah Board of Social Investment Bank Limited was held in the board room of the bank recently. The bank’s Shariah Board chairman, Moulana Ubaidul Haque, presided over the meeting. Shariah Board member secretary, professor ANM Rashid Ahmad, members, Kamal Uddin Zafree, Mufti Sayed Ahmad, Dr Mahfuzur Rahman, advocate Mujibur Rahman, Mohammad Sharif Hussain attended the meeting.
   The SIBL board of directors’ chairman, Dr Rezaul Haque, vice-chairman, Mohammed Afzal Hossain, were present.

A three-member delegation of the Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited led by bank’s board of directors’ chairman, Kazi Harun-ar-Rashed, left Dhaka for Kuwait to participate in the 31st annual meeting of the Islamic Development Bank. Other two members are Md Fayekuzzaman and Ali MS Alghamdi, KSA directors of the Bank.

The Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited and the Kuwait Asian International Exchange Company signed a deed of agreement recently. Prompt Money remitting facilities through banking channel for Bangladeshi wage— earners working in Kuwait will be expanded by this agreement.
   The IBBL executive vice-president and head of International Banking Wing, Mohammad Abdul Mannan, and the Kuwait Asian International Exchange Company director, Jamil Mohammad Abdul Jalil, signed the contract.

The annual World Economic Forum on Africa opening in Cape Town on Wednesday will take stock of Africa’s strongest growth in three decades and the impact of China and India on the continent.
   South African President Thabo Mbeki, Armando Guebuza of Mozambique and Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania are among the leaders joining some 650 participants for the three-day conference.
   ‘The general environment in Africa probably could not have been better. For three years in a row Africa as a continent has grown at more than five per cent,’ the WEF’s Africa director Haiko Alfeld said.
   ‘The tone is set... there is a very strong bullish mood this year on what Africans can do for themselves,’ he told journalists ahead of the meeting.
   Sub-Saharan Africa is poised to post growth of 5.8 per cent, its best performance in more than 30 years, according to the International Monetary Fund.
   The projected spurt is driven by oil producers, notably in light of capacity increases in Angola and the Republic of Congo and with new production coming on stream in Mauritania.
   One of the issues under discussion at the Cape Town WEF will be how Africa could benefit even more from the economic growth in China and India, Alfeld said.
   ‘We will have a very deliberate focus on the impact of China and India on Africa. We’ll talk about the scale, the dimensions, the prospects of especially Chinese investments on the continent,’ said Alfeld.
   ‘We will also look at the expected downside of it like the impact on governance and labour and human rights standards.’
   ‘The question has been posed with rising south-south links and strong links between South Africa, Brazil, China and India if Africa should increasingly look East rather than look at the north-south angle,’ Alfeld added.
   A few days ahead of the WEF conference, however questions were being asked about how business participation in the meeting—described by some as a ‘meeting of the like-minded’—would make a difference to millions of poor across the continent.
   Alfeld admitted that despite being given great prominence at previous WEF meetings, Africa’s much vaunted NEPAD economic rescue plan ‘seems to have disappeared from the public discourse.’
   ‘I cannot speak on behalf of business... but clearly there is a sense of disillusionment at the lack of progress and the lack of steam of NEPAD,’ he said.
   The New Partnership for Africa’s Development is a home-grown plan, proposed to pull the continent out of poverty by encouraging investment, and in return embrace key principles such as good governance and public and financial accountability.

With exploration and production still struggling to catch up to last year’s levels, the US’s crucial Gulf of Mexico oil and gas industry is gearing up for what could be another dangerous hurricane season.
   Offshore oil production on the US Gulf Coast, which hurricanes Katrina and Rita brought to a halt last year, remains down by about 21 per cent from normal capacity, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) reported this month.
   About 13 per cent of natural gas production is offline, and 3.3 per cent of Gulf Coast refinery capacity is not yet operational, the report said.
   Government regulators and offshore energy companies, many still reeling from the damage inflicted by the back-to-back storms last August and September, are working to mitigate possible supply disruptions during the 2007 hurricane season, which begins June 1.
   ‘We’re evaluating everything that we possibly can in preparation for hurricane season,’ MMS spokesperson Caryl Fagot told AFP.
   Forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
   this week predicted another unusually active North Atlantic hurricane season, with as many as 16 named tropical storms, four to six of them rising to Category 3 hurricane strength or higher.
   On average, six North Atlantic tropical storms become hurricanes every year. In 2005, there were a record-setting 28 named storms and 15 hurricanes.
   Katrina and Rita, which devastated the central Gulf Coast, caused between 18 and 31 million dollars in damage to the region’s energy infrastructure, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate.
   ‘There were significant disruptions, and continue to be significant disruptions,’ said Michael Kearns, a spokesperson for the National Ocean Industry Association in Washington.
   But the 113 offshore platforms destroyed by the storms represent a fraction of the 4,000 platforms in the Gulf, he said, and most of those wrecked were built before 1988, when stricter federal guidelines on platform construction went into effect.
   Some newer deepwater platforms suffered extensive damage, however. Shell Exploration and Production Co’s mammoth Mars platform, which accounts for about five per cent of Gulf oil and gas production, resumed limited operations only this month.

Experts call it the ‘oil curse’. In Africa’s oil exporting countries, only a tiny fraction of revenues is used to fight poverty, and in many cases black gold has actually become a hurdle to development.
   Oil in Africa — from the Gulf of Guinea to northwestern Sudan — lies at the heart of questions of good governance and development, as oil prices and revenues soar but fail to bring better living standards for millions of poor.
   Across the continent, ‘oil money evaporates into the savannah’, Jean-Marie Chevalier, a professor at Paris-Dauphine University and director of Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA), told a conference in Paris this week.
   Not only does oil wealth fail to translate into economic development, but in many cases it distorts the country’s economy and holds back the development of other export industries, he said.
   Almost everywhere in Africa, oil has fostered corruption and bureaucracy — without benefiting the poor, according to speakers at the conference, organised by the French Agency for Development.
   Africa accounts for 11.4 per cent of global oil production, holding 9.4 per cent of the world’s reserves.
   The continent’s output has surged by 40 per cent since 1990 to 10 million barrels per day (bpd), fuelled by demand from importers such as the United States and China looking to diversify their supply outside the Middle East.
   Established exporters such as Nigeria, Gabon, the Republic of Congo and Cameroon have been joined by newcomers Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Sudan, Sao Tome and most recently Mauritania.
   Yet despite the flow of oil revenues, African producers fare no better than importers in terms of development, according to Chevalier.
   Nigeria — Africa’s most populous nation and its largest exporter with 2.5 million bpd — is a prime example of the ‘oil curse’, according to Philippe Sebille-Lopez, of the French Institute of Geopolitics.
   ‘The evolution is catastrophic and the country is regressing in terms of human development,’ he said.
   Between 2004 and 2005, Nigeria lost seven places on the UN scale of human development, sliding from 151st to 158th out of 177 countries monitored.
   More than 70 per cent of Nigeria’s 130 million inhabitants survive on less than a dollar a day, and social unrest has gripped the oil-rich south as local communities rise up to claim a share of revenues.

China, long known for its abundant workforce, is beginning to show signs of a shortage of cheap labour, state media said Sunday.
   Despite official figures indicating about 150 million excess labourers from the countryside are waiting to find jobs in cities, signs have emerged that the labour supply is shrinking, Xinhua news agency said.
   In the southern province of Guangdong, the nation’s manufacturing capital, there is an annual labour shortfall of about two million workers, Xinhua said.
   Factories there are finding it harder to hire migrant workers for low wages.
   The labour shortfall is being felt not only in booming cities along the eastern coast but also in inland cities, Xinhua said.
   The central province of Henan, the most populous province, has gone all out to develop textile and clothing industries but the workforce in local textile and clothing mills was only 70 per cent of what was expected, Xinhua said.
   The latest survey from the Ministry of Labour and Social Security showed that in 2006, construction, engineering and machine building enterprises
   in prosperous coastal areas
   are willing to pay workers at least 1,000 yuan (about 125 US dollars) per month, said Xinhua.
   That is almost equal to the local monthly salary of college graduates. Just three years ago, these enterprises paid only 600 yuan per month.

The Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) Limited in Bangladesh announced the syndication of a Tk 70 crore term loan facility for Eskayef Bangladesh Limited, part of Transcom Group, on 23 May 2006 at a signing ceremony at a local hotel. A total of five banks participated in the syndicated facility. Along with HSBC, United Commercial Bank Limited, Pubali Bank Limited, The Trust Bank Limited and the Commercial Bank of Ceylon Limited were participants in the facility. Transcom Group chairman Latifur Rahman and HSBC Bangladesh CEO Steve Banner are seen among executives of other participating banks.

Residents of this hard-up region in the central Philippines hope for an economic renaissance as they await the imminent reopening of what was one of the world’s largest copper mines.
   Atlas Consolidated Mining and Development Corp is set to resume operations by mid-2007 after a 13-year halt, hoping to cash in on metals prices that are at or at near all-time highs.
   ‘It’s time for the Philippines to get back on its feet and for our mining companies to participate in the growing prosperity of all the mining regions of the world,’ said Atlas president Alfredo Ramos, scrambling to put together $171 million to get the 5,000-hectare (12,350-acre) mine up and running in 12-15 months.
   More than most communities in the Philippines, Toledo on the central island of Cebu has suffered every whim and twist of successive boom and bust cycles in global commodities.
   Built on copper riches in surrounding hills, Toledo is one of the few areas in the Philippines where there is no active environmental or anti-mining lobby.
   ‘They are a pragmatic people,’ Atlas executive vice president and chief financial officer Martin Buckingham told AFP.
   Some 6,000 Atlas workers lost their jobs in 1994 when the mine closed down as copper prices tumbled to 65 US cents a pound, mine veteran Matt Legaspi recalled. Today copper is selling for around 3.84 dollars a pound.
   A series of labour disputes and two typhoons, one after the other, eventually sealed the mine’s fate and over the next decade, the relentless tropical jungle swallowed up much of the infrastructure.
   Acacia saplings now grow on the bed of giant trucks that used to haul 170 tonnes of ore at a time and rust has eaten through the roofing at the old concentrator mill.
   The company-run city hospital is also shuttered. The ceiling boards of the city’s sports club, where company parties celebrated the past booms, are also falling down.
   Yet Legaspi and his family, like many others, stuck around, and there is a fresh spring in the step of his neighbours with 3,000 workers expected to be hired soon, many of them former Atlas employees who have yet to get their full severance pay.
   ‘When the mine reopens the people of Toledo will benefit,’ said Legaspi, now an Atlas safety officer.
   In 1977, the Toledo operation was the fifth largest mine in the world and Southeast Asia’s largest copper mine, employing 12,000 people and processing 110,000 tonnes of ore per day.
   Current day demand and supply dynamics should ensure that the good times will last this time around, Atlas president Ramos said.

The OPEC cartel appears set to maintain its oil output levels at a meeting in Venezuela this week, reluctant to rock a high-flying market that is reaping its 11 members a bonanza of petrodollars.
   The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries will hold its latest talks in Caracas on Thursday—giving Venezuela’s firebrand President Hugo Chavez a high-profile stage to exhibit his anti-US rhetoric, if he wishes.
   In an unusual move, Chavez himself will address the meeting of OPEC oil ministers. Venezuela, OPEC’s only Latin American member, has called for the cartel to cut its output, arguing that global supplies are plentiful.
   Analysts believe that the call by Chavez’s government will receive short shrift from the other OPEC members led by the cartel’s kingpin, Saudi Arabia.

brutal summer heat sends temperatures soaring above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), a dire shortage of petroleum products is damaging the economy and cutting electricity supplies in Baghdad to new lows.
   The capital has some 160 gas stations, of which half are privately run, and long lines of motorists stretch in front of those still selling gasoline.
   ‘The daily consumption of gasoline reaches 20 million liters (five million gallons) for the country, of which six to seven million is for Baghdad,’ where six million people live, said Assem Jihad. ‘And supply is well below demand.’
   Sabotage of the oil infrastructure is also ongoing, aggravating the situation, he added, nothing there had been two attacks in the past week on pipelines to the north and south of the capital.

Malaysia is in talks with the Japanese operator of Tokyo Disneyland to bring the first Disney theme park to Southeast Asia, a report said Sunday.
   Malaysian government officials and representatives from the government-linked conglomerate UEM World are negotiating with Oriental Land to bring the theme park to the southern state of Johor, the Edge financial weekly said.
   ‘The discussions are progressing well. The Disney theme park may occupy about 2,000 acres (800 hectares) of Nusajaya,’ said the unnamed source.
   Bandar Nusajaya is UEM’s 23,000-acre township on the southwestern tip of Johor, the state that lies nearest to Singapore.

Otmar Issing’s departure from the executive board of the European Central Bank on May 31 not only marks the end of an era, but also, to some extent, the coming of age of the eight-year old bank.
   After all, the 70-year-old professor has been the ECB’s chief economist and he is the last of the original line-up of the six-strong executive board—responsible for the day-to-day running of the world’s second largest central bank—to leave.
   But the departure of Issing, who is seen as the ‘secret ruler’ of the ECB, is unlikely to mark any change in the monetary policy strategy—or credibility—of the guardian of the euro, analysts said.
   ‘I don’t think that his departure will have a major impact on the ECB’s credibility,’ said Bank of America economist Holger Schmieding.

Extension of audit submission
   The Securities and Exchange Commission has allowed time up to June 30 to the City Bank Ltd, Eastern Insurance Co Ltd and Federal Insurance Co Ltd for submission of audited financial statements for the year ending December 31, 2005.
   Real time stock price on RTV
   The Chittagong Stock Exchange has informed that from now on all may watch CSE`s real time stock price on RTV during trading hours on the market days.
   
   Dividend
   Jago Corporation Ltd has recommended 6 per cent cash dividend for public shareholders for the year 2005. The annual general meeting of the company will be held on June 26 at 4:00pm at the BIAM auditorium at New Eskaton in Dhaka.
   
   Spot trade
   * Trading of the shares of Beximco Pharmaceuticals, Summit Power, Agrani Insurance and Nitol Insurance will be allowed only in the spot market and block/odd transactions will also be settled as per spot settlement cycle from May 29 to 31. Trading of the shares of the companies will remain suspended on record date on June 1.
   * Trading of the shares of GQ Ball Pen, Safko Spinning, First Lease International, Monno Fabrics and Monno Jute Stafflers will be allowed in spot market from May 29 to 30.
   * Trading of the shares of Modern Industries will be allowed in spot market from May 29 to June 5 as book closure will start from June 7.
   
   Trade suspension
   Trading of the shares of BGIC remains suspended today on record date.
   
   Trade resumption
   Trading of the shares of AB Bank and Pioneer Insurance resumes today after Record Date.
   
   Transaction
   Md Shamsul Huda, one of the sponsor/directors of Islami Bank, has reported his intention to buy 500 shares of the bank at prevailing market price through stock exchange within next 30 working days.
   
   No price limit
   There will be no price limit on the trading of the shares of National Bank Ld today from 12.00pm to 12.30pm as there was no trade recorded on Sunday after the record date of the company.
   
   Profit
   * As per audited accounts as on December 31, 2005, Modern Industries has reported net profit of Tk 3 lakh with earning per share of Tk 2.34.
   
   Paid up shares of NBL up
   Paid up shares of National Bank Ltd has been increased by 18,58,780 bonus shares (30 per cent bonus of 61,95,934 shares) as the scrip has been allowed to trade as ex-benefits with effect from May 28. Now the total paid up shares of NBL is 80,54,714.
   Source: DSE, CSE

Training in
bank laws begins
A five-day training course on ‘Banking Laws and Regulations’ sponsored by Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management began on Sunday. General manager of the Bangladesh Bank, Khulna Sarder, Mohammad Shajahan inaugurated the course in its auditorium. About 35 senior officers, including bank managers, of different schedule banks of the region participated in the function.
— BSS

Pakistan loses tobacco revenues
A report prepared by an international research agency has revealed that Pakistan is losing over Rs.8 billion annually through cigarette manufacturing outfits avoiding tax, indulging in smuggling and counterfeiting. The report has advised the government to make tax evasion a more serious offence, take aggressive steps to enforce the law and give stern punishment to the defaulters. The report based on fresh retail survey conducted by the AC Nielsen said the total 74 billion sticks were consumed in 2005, which included 60.5 billion cigarettes produced by the legitimate sector while 13.5 billion shared by illegal manufacturers.
— ANI

Japan’s new import standards threaten Chinese farmers
Liu Jianlin looked worried as he stood by gazing his fish pond Sunday, for the fear that the eels which brought him 1,250 US. dollars a year may now leave him in the red. ‘I do not have the least idea whether anyone will buy my eels this year,’ said the farmer from Rentian town in the city of Ruijin, east China’s Jiangxi Province. Liu used to sell his eels to Hongdu Aquatic Food Co. Ltd, the country’s No. 2 roast eel maker that exports at least 90 per cent of its products to Japan.
— Xinhua