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The Association of Travel Agents of Bangladesh has requested the government to increase its open sky policy for at least one year from three months to facilitate manpower export from Bangladesh to Malaysia and the Middle East countries.
   The ATAB, which represents more than a hundred travel agencies in the country, last week requested the civil aviation and tourism ministry to consider its proposal sympathetically as it felt that the duration of the open sky policy for only three months was not enough to attract more foreign airlines to increase the number of flights. Both people who have got jobs abroad and other passengers cannot get tickets as there are too few planes to accommodate them.
   ‘The open sky policy for only three months has proved to be futile as only a few airlines have responded to the opportunity,’ said Muhaimin Saleh, president of the ATAB, on Wednesday.
   The government in September announced the open sky policy for three months, from October 1 to Dec 31, in the three international airports of the country, hoping to clear up a backlog of 1.5 lakh people who have jobs waiting in Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, but no flights to get them there.
   According to the decision, Zia International Airport in Dhaka, Shah Amanat International Airport in Chittagong and Osmani Airport in Sylhet will remain open to designated airlines to operate as many flights as they wish to carry passengers from Bangladesh to cope with the huge rush of passengers.
   Muhaimin said that because the open sky policy would last for only three months, many of the airlines were not interested to operate flights as it was not commercially viable for them to ply a particular route for such a short period.
   He also said if the open sky regime remains in force for at least one year, it might attract more airlines to operate flights from Bangladesh, which will ultimately increase competition and decrease the prices of tickets.
   He said the ticket shortage was still persisting for the overseas job seekers as the airlines operating from Bangladesh can only provide 1,500 seats a day against the daily demand for 2,500 seats.
   Civil aviation ministry officials said they were yet to take any decision on the ATAB’s request.
   ‘We will hold a meeting to review the situation before taking any decision in this regard,’ said an official.

The Securities and Exchange Commission took a number of correction measures for the overheated stock market in recent months to protect the interests of retail investors.
   The SEC had to take the measures for controlling the unusual behaviour of the stock market keeping in consideration the interests of general investors, said a senior official of the commission at a press briefing emerging out of the SEC advisory committee meeting on Wednesday.
   The advisory committee at the meeting reviewed the current market situation as well as the recent incidents at the surroundings of the stock market.
   ‘The commission has explained before the committee the reasons behind the SEC’s recent intervention in the market,’ said Farhad Ahmed, executive director of the SEC.
   SEC chairman, Faruq Ahmad Siddiqi, also the convenor of the committee, presided over the meeting held at the conference room of the commission.
   A good number of members of the 26-member committee attended the 2nd meeting of the advisory committee which was reconstituted in the late last year.
   Farhad, also the commission’s spokesperson, said some members of the committee suggested that the regulatory body should not intervene into the market.
   ‘The commission has told the meeting that it had to take market corrective measures in an unusual situation of the market,’ he added.
   He said that it was unusual as the market witnessed no price corrections without the SEC’s intervention from May to December this year.
   ‘The measures were temporary and these could not be parts of the commission’s long-term policy,’ said the SEC official.
   The meeting also discussed over the introduction of book-building system of initial public offering pricing and SEC notification over further capital raising.
   ‘The committee suggested that the SEC should introduce book-building system of IPO pricing soon,’ said Farhad Ahmed.
   He said the commission presented a preliminary guideline before the committee on the book-building system of IPO pricing.
   As per preliminary guideline IPO worth not less than Tk 30 crore will be entitled for the book-building system, he said.
   He said some members of the committee suggested that the ceiling for regulation fund raising from the capital market in case of raising paid-up capital should be increased to Tk 100 crore.
   As per the existing SEC notification, company for raising its paid-up capital further by Tk 50 crore, it has to raise at least 30 per cent of the capital from the capital market, he said.
   Farhad said the issue of the requirement for the bank certificate in the opening of beneficiary owners’ accounts was also discussed in the meeting.
   ‘The SEC discussed the issue with the Bangladesh Bank,’ he said adding that ‘the commission will in a few days send a format of the certificate to the central bank.’
   He said the central bank would provide all the banks the format so that banks could issue certificates for the people willing to open BO accounts in a unified manner.
   The members of the SEC advisory committee includes, Finance ministry additional secretary (banking), a Bangladesh Bank deputy governor, ICB managing director, ICAB president, CDBL managing director, BAPLC managing director, BLFCA chairman, FBCCI president, MCCI president, DCCI president, DSE president, CSE president, CCCI president, RCCI president, SCCI president, BCCI president, KCCI president, Dhaka DU economics department Professor Abu Ahmed, Zaid Bakht of BIDS and Sheikh Abdul Hafiz, the Financial Express editor Moazzem Hossain, former BIA president Nasir A Chowdhury and three SEC commissioners.

The country can fetch over $500 crore annually exporting herbal medicinal products with the introduction of a pragmatic policy and streamlining production of herbal medicines through optimal use of available resources.
   The observation came at the concluding session of the two-day national conference on medicinal plant promotion in healthcare jointly organised by the Satsanga Pallikalyan Samity and the People’s Health Movement in cooperation with the Action Aid Bangladesh and the European Commission.
   The national conference also revealed that due to the negligence and unawareness a large number of rare species of herbal plant are being extinct.
   The speakers presented six papers on the present situation of the herbal and medicinal plants and their future production, in the conference.

Asian stock markets skidded lower Wednesday, following Wall Street into the red on fears that a quarter-point interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve may not be enough to ward off a US recession, dealers said.
   They said that while the US central bank’s decision to trim its key federal funds interest rate by 25 basis points to 4.25 per cent was in line with market expectations, some investors had been hoping for a more aggressive cut.
   Markets in Asia, however, managed to recover some of their losses in late trade as investors took the view that the initial sell-off was excessive.
   Tokyo ended down 0.70 per cent, Shanghai lost 1.54 per cent and Sydney fell 1.0 per cent.
   Hong Kong was down 1.5 percent in late deals as Singapore slid 1.2 per cent.
   ‘It seems that investors want the Fed to solve all the ills of the US economy with one shot,’ said Benjamin Collett, head of hedge fund sales trading at Daiwa Securities Co in Hong Kong.
   ‘Some sectors want the Fed to support the economy much more aggressively,’ he said.
   On Wall Street the Dow Jones index dropped 2.14 per cent Tuesday in the wake of the Fed’s third interest rate cut since September to try to cushion the world’s largest economy from mortgage and credit market problems. The US housing woes have triggered multi-billion dollars losses for major banks that snapped up mortgage-backed securities during a housing boom.
   This in turn has led to a credit crunch, as banks become wary of lending money to each other, and higher short-term interest rates.

Six potential buyers collected tender documents from Bangladesh Bank on Wednesday to make technical and financial offers for Tk 350 crore sponsor shares of Oriental Bank, said a central bank official.
   They have been given January 20 deadline to submit the documents, he said adding, ‘We are expecting to sign purchase agreement by February.’
   The investors are Summit group, BRAC Bank, Domestic Investors Consortium, a Malaysian financial group holding, Sri Lanka-based Hatton National Bank and UK-based East Invest Private Equity Limited.
   The central bank in August asked for expression of interest from the potential investors to buy the sponsor shares and the last date of submitting application was September 23.
   The six potential buyers completed their inspection of the bank in November.
   If the amount exceeds Tk 350 crore, the additional amount would be considered as premium, said another central bank official.
   Investors are likely to buy the shares at a premium as the central bank is not going to issue licence for new bank, he said.
   The bank would also issue shares to depositors proportionately, said added.
   Depositors with Tk 1 crore and over would get shares of 25 per cent of their deposits, Tk 50 lakh to Tk 1 crore would get shares of 20 per cent of their deposits, Tk 10 lakh to less than Tk 50 lakh would get shares of 10 per cent and depositors with less than Tk 10 lakh would get shares of 10 per cent but it is optional, he said.
   In the bank, general depositors have around Tk 1,150 crore, government Tk 400 crore, private banks Tk 350 crore, financial institutions Tk 90 crore, insurance companies Tk 16 crore and local authorities Tk 7 crore.

The finance adviser, AB Mirza Azizul Islam, Wednesday suggested a change in the mindset of international donors, who bankroll development through government and non-governmental channels.
   ‘The researches have to change the mindset of the donors, as they are neither angels nor devils, through discussion. Policymakers have to change their mindset about the researchers whereas changing mindset of the researchers is also needed,’ he said addressing a discussion on ‘the research and policy divide: meeting the policy research challenge in Bangladesh’.
   The Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies organised the discussion sponsored by Manusher Jonno Foundation at the LGED auditorium in the city.
   The BIDS director general, Quazi Shahabuddin, chaired the meet where Professor Mosharraf Hossain was present as guest of honour and Manusher Jonno Foundation executive director Shaheen Anam as special guest.
   The adviser, responding to some discussants’ allegation against the funding agencies, said donors are human beings, not angels or devils. So their mindset could be changed through discussion. He mentioned that the recommendations that were coming out from the researchers had little connection with the reality and policy demand.
   The adviser of the caretaker government blamed some researchers for their callousness. ‘In this fiscal budget the government allocated Tk 350 crore for research in agriculture, but, after six months, I am yet to have any guideline from the researchers,’ he said.

A number of shortcomings, including inadequate technical support services and skill, are hampering the productivity
   and growth of the poultry sector.
   Poultry farmers, especially the small and medium entrepreneurs, have very little access to technical support services like laboratory facilities, market linkage, training, and specialised services, Agrovision chief executive officer Akhtaruzzaman told an orientation session for journalists on poultry business on Wednesday.
   The SouthAsia Enterprise Development Facility of the World Bank Group organised the session on ‘Challenges and Opportunities SMEs Face in the Poultry Sector’ at its Gulshan office in Dhaka.
   Akhtaruzzaman, CEO of the consultancy firm on agribusiness, was the guest speaker of the session. Referring to the recent outbreak of avian influenza that devastated the poultry sector, he said the industry stakeholders and the government agencies concerned should undertake coordinated and effective programme to prevent and deal with any recurrence of the deadly disease.
   According to the SEDF estimate, around five million people are directly or indirectly engaged in poultry farming, the country’s fastest-growing and second largest economic sector after the readymade garment, with a total investment to the tune of $887 million and a $660 million market.
   Considering all the aspects, the SEDF is trying to improve the quality of poultry inputs like day-old chicks, feeds and technical services, said Khan M Faizus Salehin, the trainer of the session. Towards this end, ‘we already have undertaken a programme to provide technical services to around 6,000 poultry farmers,’ said Faizus, a business development analyst at the SEDF.
   In addition, the WB facility will also provide training to 5,000 more poultry farmers in developing bio-security
   at their farms, he said, adding that journalists also had an important role to play in informing the farmers about the importance of availing the support services.

The trading at the Dhaka Stock Exchange will remain closed from December 20 to 25 for festivals closure, officials said.
   ‘The market will remain closed on December 20-22 for the festival of Eid-ul-Azha of the Muslims, two-days more on December 23-24 for the festival hangover and on December 25 for the Christ-mass Day, the biggest festival of Christian community, said Salahuddin Ahmed Khan, chief executive officer of the DSE, on Wednesday.
   He said the bourse extended the Eid vacation for two days considering the requests from the brokers as they sought the extension anticipating thin turnout of the officials in the offices for the festival hangover.
   Meanwhile, the stocks closed mixed at the DSE on Wednesday and gained at the Chittagong Stock Exchange.
   The DSE general index lost 1.21 points or 0.04 per cent to close at 2898.35. The DSE20, the bourse’s blue chips index, however, gained 2.82 points or 0.12 per cent to close at 2310.52.
   The CSE selective categories index gained 9.21 points or 0.19 per cent to close at 4733.68, while its blue chips index, CSE30, advanced by 19.17 points or 0.30 per cent to close at 6515.52.
   Turnover at the DSE increased to Tk 110.95 crore from the Tuesday’s Tk 96.10 crore and the CSE turnover went up to Tk 14.51 crore from Tk 12.50 crore.

Prime Finance and Investment Limited, a non-banking financial institution and full-fledged merchant bank, has recently signed an agreement with Keya Cotton Mills Limited to manage its proposed initial public offering.
   AKM Nozmul Haque, managing director of Prime Finance, and Abdul Khaleque Pathan, managing director of Keya Cotton Mills, signed the agreement on behalf of their respective organisations at a ceremony in the capital, said a press release.
   Under the arrangement, Prime Finance will raise a total amount of Tk 25 crore for Keya Cotton Mills Ltd through public issue of shares.
   Prime Finance’s DMD Md Akter H Sannamat, senior vice-president Moin Al Kashem and vice-president Md Rezaul Haque, and Keya Cotton Mills’ executive director and company secretary Syed Noorul Alam, were also present in the occasion.

Hong Kong gold prices closed lower Wednesday at 805.80-806.30 US dollars an ounce, down from Tuesday’s close of 808.00-808.50 dollars. It opened at 805.00-805.50 dollars.

India remains the top destination for companies moving information technology services to lower-cost economies, but China, Russia and Brazil are catching up, said a report released Tuesday.
   Research firm Gartner also said offshore spending will grow 60 per cent in Europe and 40 per cent in the US next year in a boost to countries such as India that are dependent on Western economies for IT revenues.
   ‘The analysis showed that India remains the undisputed leader in offshore services, but increasingly countries such as China, Russia and Brazil are providing credible alternatives,’ Gartner said in the report.
   India, led by software firms such as Tata Consultancy, Infosys and Wipro, has leveraged on a vast engineering talent pool and labour costs that are a fifth of those in the West to build itself into the world’s back-office.
   Gartner used 10 criteria to rate potential locations for IT services, including language, government support, labour pool, infrastructure, educational system, cost and political and economic environment.
   Cultural compatibility, global and legal maturity, and data and intellectual property security and privacy were also factored in.
   ‘The aim of the study was not to rank each country, but rather help sourcing managers determine which locations are right for their organisations,’ Ian Marriott, research vice-president at Gartner, said in a statement here.
   Thirty countries around the world made the cut as suitable IT off-shoring locations.
   Although seen as India’s greatest challenger in terms of its potential scale, China fared poorly for language skills, Gartner said.
   China, India and Singapore all had strong government support for the promotion of their country as an offshore services location.
   The political and economic environment remains a concern for many companies when moving work to offshore locations and so Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam rated poorly, Gartner said.

A Chinese-owned South Korean automaker on Wednesday showcased a new luxury sedan as part of attempts to diversify from gas-guzzling SUVs.
   Ssangyong Motor expects to sell 20,000 of the Chairman W model in South Korea next year starting in March and to export 10,000, chief executive officer Choi Hyung-Tak told a press conference.
   The Chairman W, with either a 3.6-litre or a 5-litre engine, will compete with foreign luxury brands such as Mercedes-Benz’s S500 and BMW’s 750 models, Choi said.
   ‘The Chairman W will be poised as a leading model in the domestic high-end car sector,’ Yonhap news agency quoted him as saying.
   Ssangyong, owned by China’s Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp, specialises in sport utility vehicles such as the Kyron, Actyon and Rexton models.
   But demand remains weak as oil prices soar. So Ssangyong is shifting its focus to sedans and plans to introduce five sedan models by the end of 2010.
   The company is the smallest of South Korea’s five carmakers. In October its monthly vehicle sales declined 10.3 percent year-on-year to 10,526.

China told the United States Wednesday to fix its own economic problems rather than deliver lectures, as the two sides warned at top-level talks in Xianghe that protectionism threatened their trade ties.
   The United States came to the two days of talks on the outskirts of Beijing with a long list of complaints about China’s economic and trade practices, with the value of the Chinese currency, the yuan, among its main concerns.
   But China’s vice minister of commerce, Chen Deming, said a weakening US dollar was a bigger global economic concern than the value of the yuan.
   ‘The yuan is not the key issue. Currently my focus is more on the depreciation of the US dollar and its possible impact and repercussions for the world economy,’ Chen told reporters on the sidelines of the conference.
   ‘I sincerely wish to see a scenario where the US economy is getting stronger and the US dollar is getting stronger.’
   In her opening remarks to the third Sino-US Strategic Economic Dialogue, the head of China’s delegation, vice premier Wu Yi, also told the United States bluntly to fix its own problems rather than complain about China.
   ‘Obviously, to resort to trade protectionism and blame another country for the structural problems in the US economy is the wrong approach which would only harm the interest of the United States itself,’ Wu said.
   Structural problems in the US economy include a low savings rate and a large public deficit, economists say.
   Wu also warned that proposed US trade legislation to punish China for alleged unfair trade practices would be a mistake.
   ‘I am particularly concerned about the 50 or so protectionist China-related bills introduced in the US Congress,’ said Wu, the country’s highest-profile trade official.
   ‘I need to be quite candid about this: If these bills are adopted, they will severely undermine US business ties with China.’
   US officials have repeatedly argued that China is employing unfair trade practices by keeping the tightly-controlled yuan artificially weak, giving Chinese exporters an unfair advantage when selling goods in the United States.
   The US trade deficit with China hit 23.8 billion dollars in September, according to US figures, and many in the United States believe domestic jobs are being lost to Chinese firms.
   The leader of the US delegation to this week’s talks, treasury secretary Henry Paulson, repeated his calls in opening remarks Wednesday for Beijing to loosen controls over the yuan, arguing it was in China’s interests to do so.
   ‘China’s leaders have voiced concerns about China’s macroeconomic stability, in particular mounting inflation, growing asset bubbles and possible overheating,’ Paulson said.
   ‘A more flexible exchange rate policy is especially important to China now, given these risks.’
   Paulson also cautioned against rising protectionism, both in China and the United States.
   ‘Whereas trade was once largely a source of stability in US-China relations, it has recently become a source of tension, and not only because of safety concerns,’ Paulson said.
   ‘Worries about the effects of foreign competition — through trade or through foreign investment — have led to a rise in economic nationalism and protectionist sentiments in both our nations.’
   He warned against ‘short-term, politically expedient actions,’ arguing that neither side can ‘protect its way to further prosperity.’
   US trade chief Susan Schwab, who is also part of the US delegation, said in an annual report delivered to Congress on Tuesday that China was failing to live up to its World Trade Organisation commitments.
   The two sides held as series of meetings throughout Wednesday. Paulson and other senior US delegation members will meet Chinese president Hu Jintao and premier Wen Jiabao in Beijing on Thursday following the end of the talks.

US commerce secretary Carlos Gutierrez on Wednesday confirmed reports that China had temporarily blocked imports of American films, just as the two sides began talks on sensitive trade disputes.
   ‘There has been a suspension,’ Gutierrez told reporters, who offered no further details, although he stressed that such suspensions happened occasionally.
   ‘This has happened in the past and at certain times of the year where they will suspend foreign movies,’ he said. China allows just 20 foreign films to be shown in the nation’s cinemas each year.
   It was not immediately known whether the suspension was due to China having already reached that number.
   US entertainment industry journal Variety last week quoted Chinese sources as saying the ban would begin on Saturday and last at least three months.
   The report said the order may be linked to Beijing’s unhappiness over the United States filing cases against China this year at the World Trade Organisation over piracy of US intellectual property such as Hollywood films.
   DVDs of newly released US films are typically available on Chinese streets for around one dollar thanks to the country’s industrious copyright pirates.
   Chinese vice premier Wu Yi this week expressed displeasure about the US taking its complaints about piracy and other issues to the WTO, but did not mention the film suspension.
   Gutierrez, who along with other US Cabinet secretaries is taking part this week in a twice-a-year Strategic Economic Dialogue with China just outside Beijing, declined further comment on the situation.
   But he expressed displeasure with China’s quota system.
   ‘The problem we have with movies... is that there is a limit, there is a number, there is a quota, and we would like to get that lifted,’ he said.
   Chinese officials at the talks were not immediately available for comment.
   The authority on the issue in China, the State Administration for Film, Radio and Television, refused to comment when contacted by AFP early this week about the Variety report.
   The Variety report said the ban had scuttled planned releases by Disney’s ‘Enchanted,’ DreamWorks’ ‘Bee Movie,’ Paramount’s ‘Stardust’, Warner’s ‘Beowulf’ and Sony’s ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’.

It will take years of unprecedented collaboration for China and the United States to resolve distrust over the safety of each other’s products, a top US official said Wednesday.
   US Health and Human Services secretary Mike Leavitt said an agreement signed a day earlier to increase oversight of Chinese manufacturers was just the beginning of a new era of necessary cooperation between the economic giants.
   ‘We are at the beginning stage,’ Leavitt said. ‘To quote a Chinese saying, ‘a man who would move a mountain starts by moving small stones,’ Leavitt told reporters on the sidelines of high-level bilateral trade talks.
   Under the two agreements signed Tuesday, China has vowed tighter supervision of a range of food items, farming feed, drugs and medical devices, including some that have been at the centre of the safety scares.
   Chinese producers of the affected products must register with local authorities and submit to annual inspections to ensure US standards are met. Results of such checks will be shared with the United States.
   ‘This issue will not be concluded a year from now. It will not be finished in five years or 10 years. This will require continuous improvement.’
   The safety of Chinese products has been thrown into doubt in recent months by a series of scandals involving product categories as diverse as toys, tyres, toothpaste and clothes, as well as food.

IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said Tuesday that Argentina should renegotiate its 6.5 billion dollar debt with the Paris Club of international creditors without the IMF’s intervention.
   But Strauss-Kahn, whose institution is partly blamed by Argentina for the South American country’s economic crisis of 2001, said he was willing to be an intermediary between the two sides.
   ‘The best solution is to pursue a process that does not involve the International Monetary Fund,’ Strauss-Kahn told reporters after meeting Argentina’s new president, Cristina Kirchner.
   ‘I can help, including by being an intermediary, but I am not an actor in this issue. I can only help resolve it,’ he said, stressing that the issue was ‘in the hands of Argentina and the Paris Club, not the International Monetary Fund.’
   Argentina owes 6.5 billion dollars to the Paris Club, which includes the United States, Japan and other developed countries in Europe.
   The Paris Club requires that the IMF endorse any debt restructuring deal, but Argentina’s government rejects the IMF’s participation.
   Argentina has accused the international institution of favouring policies that led to a spectacular debt default in 2001 and refusing to bail the country out in the lowest moments of its economic crisis.
   Argentina reimbursed its 9.5 billion dollar debt to the IMF last year, five years after a dramatic default that triggered the worst economic crisis in its history and plunged more than half the population into poverty.

French-US telecom group Alcatel-Lucent signed Tuesday an 82 million dollars deal with a Kenyan-led consortium to build a fibre optic cable linking East Africa to the Gulf.
   The 4,900km cable to be set up by Alcatel-Lucent and the East Africa Marine System Ltd consortium will link the Kenyan port of Mombasa with Fujairah in the Gulf of Oman, United Arab Emirates.
   ‘With Alcatel-Lucent’s cable solution, we will bring down the cost of Internet connectivity and international calls,’ said Bitange Ndemo, permanent secretary in Kenya’s information ministry.
   ‘As an important economic player in East Africa, such high speed communications’ links will support the business community’s investment in outsourcing services which are becoming increasingly popular in Kenya.’
   Network installation in the 60 million euros deal is scheduled to be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2009, the company said.
   The Kenyan government will have a 20 per cent stake, Abu Dhabi-based Etisalat will hold 15 per cent, while the remaining 65 per cent will be open to bids from neighbouring states. If there are no takers, it will be offered to Kenyan investors.
   ‘This project is a new milestone in the development of the Eastern African communication infrastructures,’ said Jean Godeluck, president of Alcatel-Lucent’s submarine network activities.
   When completed, the cable will serve several countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Uganda, Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia and Somalia, officials said.
   ‘Our submarine solutions offer the flexibility and reliability our customers demand to support the cost-effective delivery of innovative services,’ said Mohd Hassan Omran, the chairman of Etisalat.
   ‘This contract is another significant demonstration of our strong leadership in submarine network solutions,’ he said.
   In November, five lenders, including the World Bank and the African Development Bank pledged 70.7 million dollars for the construction of another 23-nation East Africa Submarine System cable that will run from South Africa to Sudan.
   The remaining 164 million dollars will be contributed by 25 private telecom firms that will operate the 10,000km EASSy cable from South Africa to Sudan.
   African countries spend about 400 million dollars a year on routing voice and data traffic through the expensive bandwidth away from and back to Africa through Europe and North America, where such services are a fraction of the cost.

Malaysia will relax rules on initial public offerings next year, in a bid to attract more companies and fend off competition from regional bourses, the securities regulator said Wednesday.
   Zarinah Anwar, chairman of Securities Commission Malaysia, said companies selling shares to the public will no longer be required to provide profit forecasts.
   Instead they will be asked to provide analysis of their financial conditions and prospects, she said.
   IPOs in Malaysia have declined this year, partly due to the shaky global equity market. So far only 26 companies have sold shares and listed on the local bourse compared to 40 in the same period last year.
   Zarinah said the Securities Commission will further streamline its regulations surrounding the listing of companies with foreign operations.
   ‘The exchange landscape is simultaneously getting crowded and undergoing consolidation at the same time,’ she said.
   ‘We wish to create conducive environment that fosters more rapid corporate sector expansion both locally and abroad through capital-raising or through merger and acquisition activities.’
   Full details of the changes will be released in January.

The IFIC Bank Limited has opened its 68th branch at Haji Nasibullah Market under Balaganj in Sylhet recently.
   Mohammad Lutfar Rahman, chairman of the bank, inaugurated the branch through a simple ceremony, said a press release.
   Didarul Alam, director of the bank, also attended the inaugural function.
   Mohammad Abdullah, deputy managing director, and other senior executives of the bank head office along with prominent businessmen and local elite were also present at the opening ceremony.

The Prime Bank Limited opened its 58th branch on Ring Road in the city on Monday.
   Azam J Chowdhury, chairman of the bank board of directors, inaugurated the branch, said a press release.
   M Shahjahan Bhuiyan, managing director of the bank, presided over the opening ceremony while Mohammad Aminul Haque, chairman, executive committee, RA Gani, former director, and Firoja Amin, deputy managing director, of the bank were present on the occasion.

The dollar fell against the euro on Wednesday after a quarter-point interest rate cut from the US Federal Reserve failed to dispel jitters about the outlook for the US economy.
   In early European trading, the euro rose to 1.4685 dollars from 1.4655 dollars in New York late on Tuesday.
   The dollar dropped against the euro in the wake of the decision by the US Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) to lower its benchmark Fed funds rate by 25 basis points to 4.25 percent.
   The cut disappointed some investors who had been seeking a more aggressive reduction to help shore up stocks and the American economy in the face of the ongoing fallout from the US subprime mortgage crisis, dealers said.
   But a half-point reduction might have hurt the greenback if it discouraged investors from holding on to their dollar-denominated investments, they added.
   The Fed also cut the discount rate, its lending rate for commercial banks, by a quarter point to 4.75 percent, despite some analyst forecasts for a sharper 50 basis point cut to help stimulate credit flows.
   “The negative reaction in the financial markets to the decision of the FOMC to lower the federal funds and discount rates by 0.25 points underlined the very difficult financial market conditions that still prevail and indicated that more monetary easing will be required in order to limit the impact on the real economy,” said analyst Derek Halpenny at The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi.
   The US cut followed a decision by the Bank of England to cut British interest rates to 5.50 percent last week while the European Central Bank held eurozone borrowing costs at 4.0 percent.
   “The Fed’s action does not match its view of the economy,” said Daisuke Uno, chief strategist at Sumitomo Mitsui Bank.
   While officials at the central bank have warned that the US economy will remain weak until mid-2008, the decision to cut rates by only a quarter point suggests that they are relatively relaxed about the outlook, he added.
   Although investors tend to prefer currencies offering higher yields, analysts had warned that the dollar could come under selling pressure if US stocks decline on jitters about the economic outlook.
   In European trading on Wednesday, the euro changed hands at 1.4685 dollars, against 1.4655 late on Tuesday, at 163.20 yen (162.17), 0.7190 pounds (0.7201) and 1.6621 Swiss francs (1.6570).

Oil prices climbed above 90 dollars on Wednesday as the market awaited the latest weekly snapshot of US energy inventories and after crude had jumped sharply the previous day.
   New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for January delivery, added 67 cents to 90.69 dollars per barrel.
   Brent North Sea crude for January delivery gained 77 cents to 90.76 dollars.
   Oil prices rose by around two dollars Tuesday, closing above 90 dollars in New York as traders viewed a quarter-point rate cut by the US Federal Reserve as stimulating the US economy and boosting energy demand.
   ‘The old push for 100 dollars seems to have been replaced by the new push for 90 dollars, suggesting that a bear (weakening) market has taken over,’ Citigroup analyst Tim Evans said.
   Traders were gearing up for US government data on the health of American energy inventories, to be released later Wednesday.

Thailand to toughen currency rules
Thailand’s finance ministry said Wednesday it would toughen foreign currency rules in a bid to prevent money laundering. Under new regulations, Thais and foreigners can bring in and out up to 20,000 dollars in cash per person, the finance ministry said. Currently, the maximum amount of cash individuals are allowed to bring in and out of Thailand is 50,000 dollars. ‘The finance ministry considers that the new amount is suitable for tourists,’ Deputy Finance Minister Sommai Pasri told reporters, adding that the new rules will be effective in January next year.
— AFP

Air China, Shanghai Airlines members of Star Alliance
Air China, the nation’s flag carrier, and Shanghai Airlines announced Wednesday their formal membership to Star Alliance, the world’s largest airline code-sharing group. ‘The two Chinese airlines ... will ensure more convenient air travel and make Star Alliance’s global network stronger, especially in the rapidly growing Chinese market,’ Jaan Albrecht, Star Alliance’s chief executive officer said. He said the two new members, which now bring the group’s market share in China to 22 per cent with strong potential for further growth, would add 51 destinations in China to the group’s daily departures. ‘That’s the biggest single growth that I’ve ever seen,’ Albrecht said. The code-sharing Star Alliance was founded in 1997 by Thai Airways, Lufthansa of Germany, Air Canada, Scandinavian Airlines and the US carrier United Airlines.
— AFP

DBS signs Singapore’s largest lease deal
DBS Bank, Southeast Asia’s biggest lender, said Wednesday it has signed Singapore’s largest-ever lease deal and will move its headquarters to a new waterfront office tower. A bank spokesman could not disclose the value of the deal but described it as competitive. From 2012, DBS will occupy 22 floors in the 48-storey Tower Three of the Marina Bay Financial Centre under a 12-year lease, a bank press release said. The move will place DBS ‘right at the heart’ of Singapore’s new financial district, said DBS chief executive officer Jackson Tai, who participated in the signing ceremony.
— AFP