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Stock prices lost on Monday on the bourses as the five large companies witnessed substantial fall in their share prices due to a regulatory move that placed them under spot trade without money adjustment facility.
   On Sunday, the Securities and Exchange Commission directed the Dhaka and the Chittagong stock exchanges to place BRAC Bank, Power Grid Company Bangladesh, Dhaka Electric Supply Company, Summit Power and Eastern Cables under the spot market instead of public market from Monday.
   The directive was issued to curb the prices and transactions movements of the companies in the backdrop of recent skyrocketing of their share prices and huge transactions.
   Market sources said the regulatory measure pushed down the prices and transactions of the shares of the companies substantially. The market also witnessed some price corrections amid selling pressure, they said.
   The general index of the DSE lost 45.63 points or 2.39 per cent to close at 1861.99 on Monday, while blue chips index, DSE20, shed 6.17 points or 0.41 per cent to close at 1498.49.
   The CSE selective categories index lost 66.45 points or 2.35 per cent to close at 2757.94 on Monday, while blue chips index, CSE30, shed 26.86 points of 0.75 per cent to close at 3570.62.
   The total turnover on the DSE decreased to Tk 98.72 crore from the Sunday’s total of Tk 135.31 crore.
   The CSE turnover came down to Tk 18.88 crore from Tk 25.96 crore.
   The DESCO lost Tk 112.75 or 14.51 per cent to close at Tk 664 on Monday on the DSE.
   The share prices of the
   PGCB declined by Tk 76.25 or 14.26 per cent to close at Tk 458.25.
   Eastern Cables lost Tk 66.50 or 14.87 per cent to close at Tk 380.50 while BRAC Bank declined by Tk 61.25 or 9.63
    per cent to close at Tk
   574.25 and Summit Power lost Tk 39.75 or 6.77 per cent to close at Tk 547.
   The turnover of the PGCB, DESCO and BRAC Bank came down to Tk 8.66 crore, Tk 3.71 crore and Tk 3.58 crore respectively from the Sunday’s figure of Tk 19.24 crore, Tk 6.81 crore and Tk 13.12 crore.
   However, PGCB, DESCO and BRAC Bank were among top ten turnover leaders of the day on DSE.
   Pubali Bank was the topmost turnover leader with total transactions of Tk 10.90 crore.
   The turnover of Summit Power and Eastern Cables decreased to Tk 75.77 lakh and Tk 23.10 lakh respectively from the Sunday’s figure of Tk 4.10 crore and Tk 2.72 crore.
   Share prices and transactions of PGCB, BRAC Bank, Summit Power and Eastern Cables dropped significantly also on the CSE. The DESCO, however, recorded no transactions on the port city bourse.
   Most of the securities ended down on Monday. Of the total 197 issues traded on the DSE, 106 declined, 77 advanced and 14 remained unchanged.
   A total of 107 issues were traded on the CSE. Of them, 70 declined, 28 advanced and nine remained unchanged.

The information technology related job opportunities jumped 25 per cent in 2006 driven by more export and outsourcing opportunities, higher recruitment by telecom and multinational companies and overall growth in the software and IT industry.
   A survey of the Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services, a trade body of software and IT enabled services producers, said that a total of 1,896 IT related job placements were announced in newspapers and internet job portals between January and December period which was 1,580 at the same period in 2005.
   ‘The job trend in the IT sector is encouraging,’ said Sarwar Alam, president of the association which represents 220 software and IT firms employing more than 6,000 IT professionals.
   ‘The marked improvement in the IT employment market has indicated that the industry is growing rapidly over the last few years,’ he said.
   The survey, however, said that during October and early November in 2006, a slight downfall in IT job announcements was noticed due to the unstable political situation prevailing at that time.
   With an estimated turnover of $150 million, the IT industry is growing over 50 per cent every year as demand for locally made software and IT enabled products increased in large business houses and public sector units to cater their growing businesses need.
   Export earnings from the sector also marked sharp rise registering 113 per cent growth in 2005-06 fiscal year to $27 million. In 2001-02, the total export of software was only $2.8 million.
   In July-October period of the current fiscal, the export of software and IT enabled services grew by 32 per cent to 7.47 million which was $5.66 million at the same period of 2005-06.
   Industry insiders, however, said though the growth accelerated in the past few years, the present size of software industry is very small than that of the neighbouring countries particularly India.

Poland’s popular but short-lived ex-prime minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz said on Monday he was mulling an offer to join the board of directors of the London-based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
   ‘I have had an offer’ from the EBRD, Marcinkiewicz—who has been on the political sidelines since he was replaced as prime minister of Poland last year by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, twin brother of the president—said on private radio station RMF FM.
   ‘We’ll see. I’ll take a decision this week,’ he added. EBRD directors represent a country or group of countries, and are selected by their own government.
   Poland is associated with Bulgaria and Albania in the EBRD, and any change of director for the group would have to be approved by the two partner countries.
   If approved for the post, Marcinkiewicz would replace Tadeusz Syryjczyk, once an aide to former centrist prime minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki.
   Marcinkiewicz was named prime minister in October 2005, after the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party did best in legislative elections the previous month.
   A relative political unknown until he was named to the premiership, he earned himself an excellent reputation among ordinary Poles and his counterparts in Poland and abroad in the nine months he served as prime minister.
   Then, in July last year, he was replaced in the key post by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, identical twin of President Lech Kaczynski, officially to allow Marcinkiewicz to run for mayor of Warsaw.
   He lost in the run-off of the municipal elections, held in November, to Hannah Gronkiewicz-Waltz, and then bid to become head of Poland’s biggest bank, PKO BP, which is majority-owned by the treasury.
   That job bid, too, ended in failure, with Marcinkiewicz withdrawing his candidacy amid criticism from the opposition, who said he did not have the financial skills and knowledge necessary to hold the post.

Inflation slightly eased in December on the back of better than average Aman harvest, a central bank official said Monday.
   The point-to-point inflation dropped to 6.13 percent in December from 6.37 percent in November while annualised inflation declined to 6.77 percent in December from 6.85 percent a month earlier, a Bangladesh Bank official said.
   ‘We had a good Aman harvest. It helped ease the pressure on prices in December,’ he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
   The inflation remained within the Bangladesh Bank’s projected rate of seven per cent for the 2006-2007 fiscal year. Aman is Bangladesh’s second biggest seasonal crop after Boro and historically its harvest eases pressure on prices across the country.

Prime Islami Life Insurance will make its debut on the bourses simultaneously on February 14.
   Sources in the bourses said the trading of the shares of the company would begin from Wednesday on the Dhaka Stock Exchange and the Chittagong Stock Exchange under N category that groups newly listed companies.
   Prime Islami raised Tk 4.50 crore from the public floating of 4.50 lakh shares of Tk 100 each during IPO subscription period from November 26 to 30.
   With the inclusion of Prime Islami, the number of insurance companies listed with the DSE and CSE stood at 32 and 26 respectively.

North Bengal Sugar Mills at Natore has so far produced 12,450 metric tonnes of sugar during the current 2006-07 crushing season.
   According to the mill sources, the sugar was produced by crushing 1.71 lakh metric tonnes of sugarcane and the sugar- harvesting rate was estimated at 7.4 per cent.
   The mill had fixed the production target of 16,820 metric tonnes of sugar from 2.30 lakh metric tonnes of sugarcane during the current season. Of the target, 74.34 per cent has already been achieved, the sources added.
   On an average, the mill has been crushing 1,000 metric tonnes of sugarcane daily since the beginning of its crushing season on October 30 last.

The three-day US Trade Show-2007 will begin at the Dhaka Sheraton Hotel on Wednesday.
   Andrew L Fawthrop, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Bangladesh, said 58 companies including IBM, HP, Citibank NA would take part in the show.
   AmCham and the US Embassy in Dhaka are jointly organising the show which is 16th of its kind here, he said at a press conference on Monday.
   The show will remain open from 10:00am to 8:00pm for visitors. Ticket for entry was fixed at Tk 20 but students will enjoy free entry. The finance and commerce adviser, Mirza Azizul, is expected to be present at the inaugural ceremony. Patricia A Butenis, US ambassador, will also present at the ceremony.
   A Gafur, executive director of AmCham, and Carter W Wilbur, economic officer of US embassy, among others, attended the press conference.

The Dubai-based airline, Emirates, has unveiled plans to increase its Bangladesh operations by introducing double daily flights to Dhaka.
   Emirates officials at a press conference on Monday said the airlines would expand network in Bangladesh by introducing three additional frequencies per week.
   Effective from March, Emirates flight frequencies will reach 11 in a week which he termed ‘double-daily operation’, said Emirates’ area manager Bangladesh, Hanif Zakaria.
   He informed that the extra frequencies with flight numbers EK 585 (Dhaka-Dubai) and EK 584 (Dubai-Dhaka) will operate every Tuesday, Friday and Saturday. Flight EK 585 will take off from Dhaka at 21:30 hours and land at Dubai International Airport the following morning at 00:25 hours while Flight EK 584 will depart from Dubai at 13:15 hours and arrive in Dhaka at 19:55 hours.

The Bangladesh Woman Chamber of Commerce and Industries president, Selima Ahmad, congratulated the Bangladesh Bank’s decision to maintain 10 per cent quota of SME loan for woman SME, reduce interest rate and provide collateral free loan up to Tk 15 lakh.
   In a statement Monday she emphasised on proper implementation of the decisions to promote woman SME in Bangladesh.
   BWCCI’s president said that 50 per cent of the total population is woman but their participation compared to their male counterparts in the mainstream economy and business is almost invisible, although woman’s participation is necessary for poverty reduction and overall economic development.
   She hoped that these decisions would ensure more participation of woman into the mainstream business.
   The BWCCI’s president also hoped that all respective commercial banks and financial institutions would take effective steps to implement the central bank’s guideline.

French Trade Minister Christine Lagarde said on Monday that a ‘pause’ was needed in talks at the World Trade Organisation despite recent high-level efforts to revive the stalled negotiations.
   ‘My personal feeling is that a real pause is needed,’ she told journalists in Brussels. ‘Let’s have another look at the parameters, the environment, the role of emerging countries, the use of big agriculture production,’ she added.
   Those parameters and the global geopolitical situation have shifted since the talks were launched in Doha in 2001, leading to the current deadlock in negotiations, she said.
   Lagarde’s stand contrasted with remarks by Finance Minister Thierry Breton, who backed on Friday a relaunch of the talks along with other Group of Seven finance ministers meeting in Essen, central Germany, on Friday and Saturday.
   After WTO talks ground to a halt in July, negotiations are entering a crucial make-or-break stage with many participants forecasting that a breakthrough is needed within the next couple of months because the US administration’s trade negotiating powers expire afterwards.
   The EU and United States have been unable to agree on the size of cuts in agriculture subsidies and tariffs protecting their farm industries, while rich and poor countries are at loggerheads over trade in industrial goods and services.
   France, Europe’s biggest agriculture power, has fought fiercely against the EU offering bigger concessions in the talks than proposals the European Commission already put on the table in October 2005.

Thomas Cook, the second-biggest European travel group, is to merge with British rival MyTravel, the groups announced on Monday.
   Analysts said that the alliance would turn up the heat on Europe’s leading tourism group TUI.
   ‘The boards of MyTravel and KarstadtQuelle have agreed the terms of recommended merger of MyTravel and Thomas Cook,’ MyTravel said in a statement.
   In fact, the tie-up effectively constitutes a takeover of MyTravel by Thomas Cook, with the German group’s parent company KarstadtQuelle to hold a 52-per cent stake in the joint entity.
   And no cash would change hands. Instead, MyTravel’s shareholders would be given the other 48 per cent of the combined company, the statement said.
   The new combined company was to be called Thomas Cook Group Plc and would be heacdquartered and listed in London.
   It would have combined annual sales of around 12 billion euros (15.6 billion dollars), narrowing the gap on market leader TUI, which generates around 14 billion euros in revenues each year from its tourism and travel operations.
   The deal was expected to be completed in June. And it had the blessing of MyTravel’s board, who described the terms as ‘fair and reasonable’ and who said they would recommend it to shareholders at an extraordinary general meeting.
   Nevertheless, the tie-up was still conditional on necessary regulatory approval, the approval of MyTravel shareholders and the completion of KarstadtQuelle’s takeover of a 50-per cent stake in Thomas Cook held by German airline Lufthansa.
   The merged Thomas Cook group would have a leading position in Britain and Ireland, Germany, Scandinavia, the Benelux countries, France and Canada, MyTravel said.
   The tie-up would cut costs by ‘at least 75 million pounds’ (112 million euros, 146 million dollars) each year.
   There would be a dual management team: the new Thomas Cook Group would have two chief executives, Peter McHugh, current CEO of MyTravel, and is counterpart of Thomas Cook, Manny Fontenla-Novoa.
   KarstadtQuelle chief Thomas Middelhoff would be chairman and his deputy would be Michael Beckett, the current chairman of MyTravel.
   ‘Thomas Cook is a household name and the joining of the two groups will create an even stronger force in this highly competitive market,’ Beckett said.
   Middelhoff said: ‘The merger of two such well-established industry players ... will achieve significant value creation for us as shareholders from this geographically diverse portfolio of companies. We look forward to being a long-term committed investor in the enlarged group.’
   The announcement sent MyTravel shares soaring on the London Stock Exchange, where they surged 26.47 per cent to 301 pence in a slightly slower market, while shares in close rival First Choice plummeted 16.38 per cent to 255.26 pence.
   In Frankfurt, shares in KarstadtQuelle jumped 3.36 per cent to 27.08 euros, while shares in arch-rival TUI were down 1.55 per cent at 17.10 euros.

Microsoft announced Monday its new version of its Windows operating systems for mobile devices and said it won new Asian partners hoping to gain more market share from competitors, Symbian and Nokia.
   The US computer giant said Windows Mobile 6 has been added new features previously only available to personal computers (PC) with text and images displayed as it would be on a PC.
   ‘Windows Mobile 6 was really designed to help bring more of your desktop PC experience to a mobile device,’ said Chris Sorensen, lead product manager at Microsoft’s Asia Pacific and Japan mobile and embedded devices division.
   Sorensen said two new Asian partners have joined the company to provide the operating systems on their devices, on top of the seven Asian mobile service providers and device maker.
   The new partners include Japanese mobile phone operator Softbank and South Korea’s LG Electronics.
   Sorensen said Asia is a key growth market for Microsoft and expects to invest more in the region although he declined to quantify the investment.
   According to global technology research company IDC’s 2005 figures, 63.1 per cent of the world’s mobile workers in 2005 come from Asia.
   ‘Without a doubt, we are the fastest growing area of Microsoft...so there’s a lot of focus. All the new products now with Microsoft have to have a mobile component to that,’ he said. ‘We see a lot of opportunities’.
   Sorensen also sees China, where it has set up mobile technology centre in Beijing, as its most important market in Asia.
   ‘We certainly will continue to invest in China. When China announces 3G licenses you are going to see more device makers who are going to want to bring more of those devices in,’ Sorensen said.
   Although Microsoft’s global market share is still behind that of Symbian and Nokia, Sorensen believed this will change.
   ‘According to IDC, our shipment went up globally 135.3 per cent, while Nokia went up 53.6 per cent and Blackberry up 41.5 per cent, you can see we have fantastic growth,’ he said.
   Windows Mobile 6 will be available to most of the Asia by the middle of this year.

China’s trade surplus rose 67 per cent in January from a year ago, official data showed Monday, a rise likely to further fuel tensions despite analysts saying seasonal factors were behind the spike.
   Based on data from China’s Customs Administration, the January trade surplus rose to 15.88 billion dollars, up 67.3 per cent from 9.49 billion dollars in January last year.
   The figure in January, however, fell 24 per cent from December when China recorded a hefty 21 billion dollar surplus.
   According to the customs bureau, exports rose 33 per cent year-on-year to 86.62 billion dollars, while imports reached 70.74 billion dollars, up 27.5 per cent. The bureau did not itself provide the monthly surplus figure.
   Analysts said the rise compared with the same period a year ago was due to seasonal factors involving the Chinese Lunar New Year, which in 2007 falls in the month of February instead of January.
   ‘The Spring festival this year is in February and that’s why both exports and imports have increased year-on-year,’ Sun Mingchun, chief economist at Lehman Brothers based in Hong Kong.
   The holiday fell in January last year, meaning fewer working days.
   Sun added that trade flows were traditionally weaker at the start of the year than the end, which explained why the figure in January 2007 was lower than in December.
   The January figure was the lowest trade number since October, when China’s roaring economy pushed the surplus to a record 23.8 billion dollars, but analysts said the seasonal skewing rendered the monthly fall nearly meaningless.
   ‘We don’t think the January figure really reflects anything meaningful,’ said Qian Wang, an economist with JPMorgan Chase Bank based in Hong Kong, adding she expected the monthly surplus to average 20 billion dollars in 2007.
   Such a forecast could further aggravate already tense trading relations with its major trading partners after Chinese commerce regulators pledged to focus on trimming last year’s record surplus of 177 billion dollars.
   That record figure prompted Commerce Minister Bo Xilai to warn last month that China’s mounting surpluses were becoming more of a problem in relations with its major economic partners.
   Bo stressed that China had to take new steps to rein in exports or face a trade surplus of about 300 billion dollars, a level that would almost certainly trigger angry protectionist measures in Washington and Brussels.
   Both Brussels and Washington have pressured China to address the surplus by calling for its currency, the yuan, to appreciate more rapidly, arguing that it is still sharply undervalued and makes Chinese exports far too cheap.
   China has resisted the pressure to allow a sharp appreciation, instead allowing the yuan to rise just above six per cent since it was de-linked from its 8.28 yuan peg to the US dollar and re-valued in July 2005.
   However China has acknowledged that a large trade surplus is not necessarily good for its own sustained economic growth and plans are afoot to abolish some favourable tax policies for exporters.
   The government also intends to reduce exports of high-energy-consuming and low-value-added goods through other non-tax measures.
   In January, total trade between China and the European Union reached 26.4 billion dollars, while trade with the United States registered 23.41 billion dollars, according to the data.

Indonesia now has enough money to pay for its development programmes as prudent macroeconomic policies have resulted in a 15 billion dollar windfall to spend on reducing poverty, the World Bank said on Monday.
   Cutting fuel subsidies in 2005, declining interest payments on its debt and increasing revenues have handed Indonesia the largest increase in fiscal resources for development since the oil boom of the mid-1970s, it said in a review of Indonesia’s public expenditure.
   Indonesia should now increase public spending, particularly in infrastructure, education and health to keep its economy competitive in the long term.
   It should raise infrastructure spending by two per centage points of gross domestic product to 5.4 per cent, or an additional six billion dollars a year, World Bank country director Andrew Steer told reporters.
   ‘It would be very nice if it would be higher than that to catch up,’ after a ‘lost decade’ following the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis, he said.
   Indonesia has lowered its debt to GDP from almost 100 per cent to below 40 per cent.
   ‘Right now the issue is not the shortage of money or financing. Money will come when there are the right designs and the right policies,’ he said.
   Water and electricity supply were two of the areas most in need of change, he said.
   Only 40 per cent of Indonesians have access to piped water and a third have no access to electricity.
   The universal electricity tariff meant state power firm PLN had no incentive to expand the network because it would lose money on every new connection, he said.
   And local authorities now had the resources to reform water supply but had done very little.
   ‘There’s nothing to stop rapid progress except political will,’ he said.
   But Steer said some of the additional money was already being well spent, particularly on education.
   ‘They now need to figure out how to also spend money well in infrastructure,’ he said.
   Indonesia is also scaling up an anti-poverty programme to reach all 75,000 villages in the next three years.
   A second scheme based on successful programmes in Mexico and Brazil will also give assistance to the poor but on conditions such as they put their children in school and provide proper nutrition, he said.
   ‘In terms of helping the poor, they’ve got two programmes that will become world class...,’ Steer said.
   ‘It will enable the inter-generational transmission of poverty to be broken, at least for some poor people, because at the moment the great tragedy worldwide is that if you’re born into a poor family, you’re going to be poor, so the trick is to break that transmission mechanism.’
   Despite the progress made in recovering from the Asian financial crisis which plunged millions back into poverty, nearly
   50 per cent of the population still lives on less than two dollars per day.

The average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States rose slightly over the past three weeks and could push higher because much of a rise in crude oil has not been passed on to consumers, an industry analyst said on Sunday.
   The national average price for self-serve, regular unleaded gasoline was $2.2209 per gallon on February 9, up 3.63 cents from January 19, according to the nationwide Lundberg survey of about 9,000 gas stations.
   ‘This is the first price rise in several weeks,’ Trilby Lundberg, editor of the survey, said. ‘But it certainly was not a spike.’ Prices at the pump are about 8 cents below the nationwide average of $2.3028 registered on February 10, 2006, she said.

British mobile-phone giant Vodafone’s purchase of a 11.1-billion-dollar stake in India’s Hutchison Essar was welcomed by local contenders Monday, smoothing its entry into the world’s fastest-growing wireless market.
   Reliance Communications said it will work with Vodafone to expand the Indian market while the Essar group, which owns 33 per cent of Hutchison Essar, said it will study an offer by the British firm to be its local partner, showing no inclination to press revised bids.
   ‘We congratulate Vodafone and welcome them to India,’ Anil Ambani, chairman of Reliance Communications, said in a statement.
   ‘Vodafone’s participation is a further endorsement of the exciting future growth potential, and the progressive policies, prevailing in the Indian telecom sector,’ he said.
   Vodafone beat Reliance Communications, the Essar Group and the Hinduja group that had all been in contention to buy the 67 per cent stake held in Hutchison Essar by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-Shing’s Hutchison Whampoa.
   Including about two billion dollars’ worth of debt that Vodafone is to assume, the agreement values Hutchison Essar, India’s fourth-biggest mobile phone operator, at about 18.8 billion dollars.
   ‘This is a good price which reflects the premier position of Hutchison Essar,’ Essar said in a statement. ‘We have been offered by Vodafone to be their partner; we are at the moment evaluating all our options in the best interest of the Group.’
   Vodaphone is seeking entry into a market that is adding about seven million mobile-phone customers a month.
   According to the British company, Hutchison Essar has about 23.3 million customers nationwide in India, equivalent to about 16.4 per cent of the country’s total mobile phone market, a share it wants to increase to as much as 25 per cent in five years.
   By 2010, India is expected to have 500 million mobile-phone subscribers, according to a government forecast, as call charges drop along with handset prices under the pressure of competition.
   Vodafone’s entry is set to shake up the industry, said Priya Bhattacharya, a telecom industry analyst at the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.
   ‘There will be very aggressive competition,’ she said. ‘The entry of such a big international player will give an altogether new dimension to the telecom market by bringing new ideas, strategies.’
   ‘Consumers will benefit in terms of better pricing, quality and service.’
   Vodafone has also ‘some understanding’ of the strategy of Bharti Airtel, India’s largest private phone company in which it has held a 10 per cent stake, and Bharti will face greater competition, said Bhattacharya.
   The British company gave Bharti the opportunity to buy back Vodafone’s 5.6 per cent direct stake in it, which Vodafone valued at 1.6 billion dollars.
   Bharti Airtel and Vodafone signed an agreement on infrastructure sharing, roaming and long distance services that will enable rapid network expansion in semi-urban and rural areas that are home to two-thirds of India’s 1.1 billion people.
   ‘We are pleased to welcome Vodafone and congratulate them on their Hutch acquisition,’ said Bharti chief Sunil Bharti Mittal in a statement. ‘Both companies will work with the industry towards connecting millions of people across India.’
   Reliance Communications said its expansion plans wouldn’t be stalled by its failure to buy the stake in Hutch Essar, saying it will invest a record 2.5 billion dollars in the financial year that starts April 1.

The economy in Cambodia, one of the world’s poorest nations, grew by 9.5 per cent last year, the United Nations said Monday, attributing growth to political stability after three decades of civil war.
   The economic performance followed a record 13.4 per cent growth in Cambodia’s gross domestic product in 2005.
   ‘Peace has had an extremely positive socio-economic impact on the nation,’ Douglas Gardner, UN resident coordinator in Cambodia, told a meeting between the government and foreign donor representatives.
   Apart from booming tourism and rising garment exports, political stability after three decades of civil war, including the Khmer Rouge’s brutal rule in the 1970s, helped spur Cambodia’s economy, Gardner said.
   ‘This shows that the economy is advancing,’ he said, but added the government should do more to help the poor and tackle growing income inequalities.
   The Economic Institute of Cambodia estimated the country’s gross domestic product at 6.5 billion dollars last year.
   While Cambodia’s economy is one of the fastest growing economies in the region, some 35 per cent of the kingdom’s 14 million people live in poverty, with nearly 50 per cent of its national budget coming from international aid.
   The three decades of civil war ended in 1998.
   Economists said the growth was at a slower slip because of a fall in agricultural products, mainly rice, because of bad weather.
   They said tourism and the garment industry, the key drivers of Cambodia’s economy, are expected to continue expanding.
   Tourist arrivals in 2006 jumped more than 20 per cent
   to about 1.7 million people, bringing 1.4 billion dollars in revenue to the impoverished country.
   The famed Angkor Wat temple complex, located in Siem Reap, is Cambodia’s most treasured landmark and biggest tourist draw.
   Cambodia’s garment exports rose 17 per cent to more than 2.5 billion dollars in 2006. Garments, which mainly go to the United States, account for 80 per cent of the country’s export earnings.
   Cambodia also created a buzz in the oil sector in 2005 when petroleum was discovered by the US energy giant Chevron Corp off the country’s coast, which struck black in four of five test wells.
   The discovery of oil, as well as millions of cubic meters of natural gas, has raised hopes of an economic re-birth for Cambodia.

German telecoms giant Deutsche Telekom is considering selling its French Internet access provider Club Internet, the business daily Handelsblatt reported on Monday, quoting company sources. ‘A decision should be reached in the coming weeks,’ the newspaper quoted a source as saying. Telekom had instructed Bank Rothschild to draw up the strategic options for a sale, it added.
   The German group declined to comment on the information. Handelsblatt said that pulling out of the French market would be one of the main new strategic moves drawn up by Telekom’s new chief executive Rene Obermann in a drastic shake-up of the telecoms behemoth. Obermann, who took over in mid-November, was compelled to down group profits forecasts last week and he vowed an ‘unvarnished stock-taking’ of Telekom’s foreign shareholdings.
   Telekom acquired Club Internet from Lagardere in a 1.4-billion-euro (1.8-billion-dollar) share swap in February 2000.

CNA Financial Corp, one of the largest commercial insurance firms in the United States, said on Monday that it had a fourth-quarter profit compared with a loss a year ago, when it was hurt by claims from 2005’s Hurricane Wilma.
   The Chicago-based insurer, a unit of conglomerate Loews Corp, said net income was $329 million, or $1.22 a share, compared with a loss of $217 million, or 92 cents a share, a year earlier. Income from continuing operations, which excludes investment gains and losses, was $248 million or $1.32 a share.
   Analysts on average had expected CNA to earn $1.01 a share excluding extraordinary items, according to Reuters Estimates.

Oil prices fell in Asian trade Monday but the market remained positive after breaching the 60 dollar mark late last week on concerns over the current cold snap in the United States, dealers said.
   At 1:48 pm (0548 GMT) New York’s main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in March, was down 53 cents to 59.36 dollars a barrel from 59.89 dollars in late US trades Friday.
   The contract had moved as high as 60.80 dollars at one point on Friday.
   Brent North Sea crude for March was down 49 cents at 58.52 dollars.
   Prices fell as the market found less support in news of supply disruptions at a major California oil field last week.
   ‘It is really the volatility of daily trading and the decline in prices is in part because traders realised that the California disruption is rather small,’ said Purvin and Gertz senior principal Victor Shum.
   News that Occidental Petroleum had shut down its Elk Hills operation in central California last Tuesday jangled nerves as it one of the largest fields in the state.
   ‘But in the overall scheme of things, that shutdown was small,’ Shum said.
   Despite Monday’s reverse, the market overall remains positive, driven by cold US weather and the February 1 production cut of 150,000 barrels a day by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Shum said.
   ‘Factors are really the ongoing cold weather in the US northeast and perhaps the improved OPEC compliance in the second round of OPEC production cuts,’ he said.
   ‘The market has quite a bit of momentum and market sentiment is bullish. However, it is not enough to drive pricing past 60 dollars at the moment.’
   OPEC’s February output reduction followed an earlier cutback in November.
   ‘There are indications that OPEC compliance is improving and whether OPEC complies fully or partially in this round of cuts, still means less supply to the market,’ Shum said.

The yen continued its slide against the dollar in Asian trade on Monday after major industrialised nations at weekend talks took a relatively soft line on the falling Japanese currency, dealers said.
   In afternoon trade the dollar rose to 121.96 yen from 121.71 in late New York trade on Friday. Tokyo markets were closed for a public holiday Monday.
   The euro rose to 1.3017 dollars from 1.3003 in Friday trade.
   Thomas Lam, treasury economist with United Overseas Bank Group, said the yen weakened further in the absence of any direct reference to Japan’s currency slide at the weekend Group of Seven (G7) finance ministers’ meeting in Germany.
   Despite pressure from eurozone officials, who had hoped for a stronger signal, ministers from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States made no specific mention of the weakening yen in their statement issued Saturday.
   Instead, they expressed their distaste for currency volatility and urged Beijing to allow more flexibility in its exchange rate regime.
   ‘The G7 meeting proved to be all talk when it came to yen carry trades,’ DBS bank said in a research report.
   In the absence of any surprise statements from the G7, the market continued to unload the Japanese currency, Lam said.
   The unit has fallen to a four-year low against the dollar and an all-time nadir versus the euro since the Bank of Japan decided to leave its super-low interest rates on hold at 0.25 per cent last month.
   Markets had previously been betting on another quarter-point rate rise and many economists now expect the central bank to leave its benchmark lending rate unchanged this month as well.
   The Bank of Japan is to meet again February 20-21.
   ‘The financial markets appear to be pricing in less than a 50 per cent chance of a hike at this point,’ Lam said.
   Japan’s fourth-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) data due out on Thursday could contribute to greater volatility in the yen trade, he said.
   DBS said that even with a strong GDP report, a rate hike next week ‘remains a tough call.’

Transaction
   EL Camellia
   Imran Ahmed, one of the corporate directors of the company has reported
   his intention to buy 990 shares of
   the company at prevailing market
   price through stock exchange within
   next 30 working days. The purpose of the purchase of 990 shares is to delist the company from the exchange as approved by the DSE board. The company
   has appointed PFI Securities Ltd to purchase the shares from the investors at market price.
   
   Trade
   Delta Life Insurance Ltd
   Normal trading of the shares of the company will resume from February 13, 2007 as announced earlier.
   
   AGM
   Pubali Bank
   The board of directors has recommended stock dividend @ 75pc for the year 2006. Annual general meeting of the bank will be held on March 31, 2007 at Darbar Hall, Bangladesh Rifles, Pilkhana, Dhaka.
   Price Limit
   Pubali Bank
   There will be no price limit on the trading of the shares of the bank on February 13, 2007 following its corporate declaration.
   
   Response to DSE query
   Eastern Housing
   In response to a DSE query, the company has informed that there is no undisclosed price sensitive information of the company for recent price hike.
   Source: DSE, CSE

Studios say Google benefits from piracy
A group of major media companies has accused Google Inc. of benefiting from the sale of pirated movies and providing business support to two Web sites suspected of offering access to illegal film downloads, the Wall Street Journal said on Monday. The media companies, which the paper said include News Corp., Viacom Inc, Sony Corp, General Electric Co’s NBC Universal, Time Warner Inc. and Walt Disney Co., allege that Google deliberately directed traffic to Web sites that were engaged in fostering piracy, the paper said, citing people familiar with the matter. Google told the studios on Friday it would implement new procedures to prevent recurrences, the Journal said. No one at Google could be immediately reached to comment on the report.
— Reuters

Depfa Bank confident for 2007 after profits rise in 2006
German-Irish bank Depfa, a leading provider of financial services to public-sector clients, expressed confidence about prospects for 2007 on Monday after profits rose sharply last year. Depfa, headquartered in Dublin but listed on the Frankfurt stock exchange, said in a statement that net profit rose by 11 per cent to 526 million euros (684 million dollars) in 2006. That was equivalent to a return on equity of 21 per cent, at the bottom end of Depfa’s target range of 20-25 per cent. Pre-tax profit was up eight per cent at 646 million euros, the statement said. In the fourth quarter alone, net profit jumped by 26 per cent to 123 million euros, Depfa continued. And the dividend would be increased by 60 per cent to 0.40 euros per share. Looking head, Depfa Bank said it was ‘very confident about its investment strategy and future business growth.’ ‘We will continue to invest in our franchise, products and systems for future revenue growth in the years 2007 and beyond,’ it said.
— AFP