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Dhaka may emphasise the need for increasing trade with the Commonwealth countries at the upcoming summit meeting, against the backdrop of the steady decline in Bangladesh’s trade in terms of percentage with members of the 53-nation group, said commerce ministry sources.
   The chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, will lead a 10-member delegation to the summit meeting to be held in Kampala, the Ugandan capital, on November 23-25.
   The Commonwealth countries account for less than 20 per cent of Bangladesh’s exports and approximately 30 per cent of its imports — figures which reveal Dhaka’s consistent trade deficit in recent times, according to a comparison made by the commerce ministry.
   Bangladesh had a trade imbalance of $1.79 billion with Commonwealth countries in the 2002-03 fiscal year, $2 billion in 2003-04, $2.37 billion in 2004-05, $1.98 billion in 2005-06 and $2.45 billion in 2006-07.
   Compared to global exports, Bangladesh’s exports to Commonwealth countries stood at 17.92 per cent in the 2002-2003 fiscal year, 18.87 per cent in 2003-04, 19.02 per cent in 2004-05, 18.33 per cent in 2005-06 and 17.6 per cent in 2006-07.
   The country’s imports from Commonwealth nations, in comparison to total imports, were 31.9 per cent in the 2002-2003 fiscal year, 31.84 per cent in 2003-04, 31.7 per cent in 2004-05, 28.42 per cent in 2005-06 and 28.92 per cent in 2006-07.
   In such a situation, Bangladesh is set to raise the issue of international trade negotiation under the World Trade Organisation for protecting the interest of least developed countries in line with the agenda of the summit meeting.
   ‘We would like to have the support of the Commonwealth nations in pushing our cause in the WTO negotiations. We hope all the Commonwealth nations will consider the ongoing global trade talks as a round of negotiations on development,’ a foreign ministry official told New Age.
   The Commonwealth, formed by the United Kingdom after World War II to form and maintain an alliance with her former colonies, is yet to effectively deal with trade-related issues. The group mainly focuses on promotion of fundamental political values.
   However, in today’s changed circumstances, Bangladesh is keen to use the platform of the Commonwealth, along with other regional and international groupings, to reap the maximum benefits from international trade, said the official trade negotiators.
   The major portion of the country’s exports to the Commonwealth countries goes to the United Kingdom and Canada, while the lion’s share of its imports from the group comes from India, Australia, Malaysia and Singapore.
   In the 2006-07 fiscal year, Bangladesh’s exports to Commonwealth nations amounted to $2.17 billion out of its annual exports valued at $12.18 billion, and the country imported goods and commodities worth $4.62 billion from the group’s members out of the overall imports of $15.97 billion.
   In the 2002-03 fiscal year, the country’s exports to Commonwealth countries were valued at $1.17 billion out of total exports of $6.55 billion, while its imports from them were valued at $2.96 billion out of the annual imports worth $9.28 billion.

The board of directors of Teletalk Bangladesh Limited on Tuesday approved a Tk 550 crore network expansion project aimed at acquiring 18 lakh more subscribers by the end of 2008.
   ‘We have approved the proposal for widening Teletalk’s network and coverage to grab more subscribers,’ said Mizanur Rahman, a joint secretary of the posts and telecommunications ministry who is on the board of the state-owned mobile phone operator.
   Teletalk, a minnow among the country’s six mobile phone operators, sent the network expansion proposal to its 11-member board for approval two months ago to stay competitive in the market.
   According to the proposal, the state-owned operator, which at present has around 10 lakh subscribers, will mobilise the fund required for the expansion through syndicated bank loans and floating an initial public offering on the capital market.
   Since the launch of its commercial service in March 2005 amid much fanfare, Teletalk has failed to expand its network and coverage substantially to cannibalise the market share of its rival operators because of financial constraints.
   The company so far has invested around Tk 800 crore to spread its network and coverage to all the districts except the three hill districts.
   The Teletalk managing director on November 5 told New Age that a massive expansion was needed to survive in the country’s highly competitive mobile market, which posted more than cent per cent growth over the past few years as the call rates and connection charges had dropped by around 80 per cent since 2004 amid a cutthroat competition, despite some regulatory hurdles such as the imposition of Tk 800 tax on the sale of every SIM card.
   To raise the money required for the network expansion, Teletalk a few months ago requested the government to waive the tax on its SIM cards, saying that it was losing business to private mobile operators as the tax had pushed up the cost of its mobile phone connection.
   The finance ministry, however, is yet to respond to the proposal to avoid revenue loss and disturbing the level-playing field.
   The government in fiscal year 2005-06 imposed a tax of Tk 900 on the sale of every SIM card but reduced it to Tk 800 in the next fiscal.
   Though the SIM tax is supposed to be paid by the buyer of a connection, all the operators including Teletalk have been providing the tax from their own coffers as subsidy while selling new connections in order to expand their client base.
   The subsidy put a strain on the income of the government-owned company as it has to deposit the SIM tax with the exchequer from its own fund.
   Presently, the number of mobile phone subscribers in the country is to the tune of 32 million and is expected to rise to around 50 million by the end of 2009.

Slowing down of time deposit, popularly known as fixed deposit, may hamper future investment as banks will face shortage of fund when the economy will pick up, said sources in the central bank.
   Time deposit increased by only 1 per cent in the July-September period of the current fiscal against 3.42 per cent in the same period of the last fiscal, according to November monthly economic indicators of the Bangladesh Bank.
   When people are in panic to deposit money with the bank, banks are not offering attractive deposits rates, said a high BB official.
   ‘Moreover, when inflation is high, people tend to consume more than deposit money,’ he explained.
   The banks had Tk 13,129 crore at the end of August against Tk 14,279 crore as of end of June.
   Import of capital machinery dropped to $366.86 million in the July-September period, which was $402.51 million in the same period of the last fiscal.
   ‘It is alarming as it will reduce production in the future,’ the BB official said.
   The net assets held by the banking system also slowed down to 2.18 per cent in the first quarter of the current fiscal from 3.16 per cent of the same period of the last fiscal.
   Slowing down of broad money shows the economy is not performing well, said the BB official.
   The government borrowing stood at Tk 5,941 crore in the first quarter against Tk 4,672.8 crore in the same period of the last fiscal.
   The private sector borrowing, however, increased to Tk 5,527.7 crore in the July-September period from Tk 3838 crore in the first quarter of the last fiscal.
   Sales of national savings directorate certificate dropped by over 10 per cent to Tk 3,551 crore in the first quarter, which showed that people are not buying the certificate due to imposition of tax on income of over Tk 1.5 lakh from the certificate.

The Securities and Exchange Commission Tuesday decided to raise the paid-up capital requirement for full-fledged merchant banks to Tk 10 crore from Tk 2 crore.
   ‘The current level of paid-up capital requirement for these institutions is very low given the depth of the market. Their activities and risk exposures have increased many times compared to 10 years back,’ said SEC executive director Farhad Ahmed.
   The stock market regulator made the decision at a meeting and directed the merchant banks to convert themselves to corporate entities within six months after the publication of the amendments in the official gazette.
   The watchdog moved to frame the rule in the wake of nearly half of the 30 merchant banks lying idle after having been awarded licences with a paid-up capital of Tk 2 crore.
   The SEC, however, said merchant banks would have to raise the paid-up capital up to Tk 6 crore in the first year and to 10 crore in the second year.
   If an institution acts only as issue manager, it will have to elevate the paid-up capital to Tk 1 crore from the current Tk 2.5 crore in one year, the SEC official said.
   The paid-up capital requirement for underwriters is Tk 5 crore from Tk 1 crore at present. Underwriters will be allowed to have Tk 3 crore in paid-up capital in the first year.
   ‘It will bring about qualitative changes in the market. New capital requirements will also increase banks’ strengths and ensure capital utilisation,’ said Salahuddin Ahmed Khan, chief executive of the Dhaka Stock Exchange.
   ‘As the market is becoming broader, greater capital size of the merchant banks has become necessary to enable them to meet the challenges of the time,’ he said.
   The DSE chief, also a member of SEC consultative committee, said merchant banks would have to remain active if they are to retain their licences under the proposed rule.
   The regulator exempted Jamuna Oil and Meghna Petroleum from submitting their audited accounts for the year ending on June 30, 2007.
   In practice, companies interested to go public need to submit their audited accounts within six months or 180 days as, according to SEC, audited accounts become invalid after 180 days.
   ‘Considering the demand for their shares in the market, we have exempted these two companies from complying with the rules. Now they will be able to publish their information documents to sell their shares through stock exchanges,’ Farhad said.
   Jamuna and Meghna earlier submitted their audited accounts for the year ending on June 30, 2006.

The current surge in world oil prices could be losing momentum as demand declines and output from the OPEC producers’ cartel picks up, the International Energy Agency said Tuesday.
   The comments come on the eve of a summit of leaders from the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, with the cartel under pressure to respond to the concerns of consumer countries about near 100-dollar oil.
   The IEA, which monitors energy policies in developed countries, lowered its global oil demand forecast for fourth quarter 2007, citing weaker economic activity in the United States, and pointed to an increase of 410,000 barrels a day in OPEC output in October.
   ‘There are ... strong indications that high prices are depressing demand,’ the agency said in its monthly oil report, ‘which together with signs of higher output from Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Nigeria, have capped further price gains.’
   Oil prices fell on Tuesday as traders reacted to the forecasts.
   In midday European trade, New York’s main futures contract, light sweet crude for December delivery, was down 82 cents at 93.80 dollars per barrel, while in London Brent North Sea crude for December delivery was 76 cents lower at 91.22 dollars per barrel.
   But the IEA cautioned that despite its downward fourth quarter demand revision, ‘supplies are likely to remain constrained through to the end of the year.’
   ‘We’re pleased to see that supplies are rising. We do think that we need more oil for the coming winter,’ IEA analyst David Fyfe told AFP.
   Demand in China, which together with the Middle East accounts for more than half the growth in global oil appetite, is expected to be robust in response to flourishing economic activity.
   The IEA said that a jump in oil prices to a psychologically significant round number — 100 dollars a barrel — may not do any specific ‘damage’ to the path of oil demand growth.
   But it said there was nonetheless a ‘cumulative’ effect from 70 dollars a barrel rise since 2002.
   ‘The recent dramatic price rise is having a ‘short-term’ shock effect, at the same time as consumers appear to be adapting behaviour to deal with steady annual price increases,’ the report said.
   It noted for example that in the leading industrialised economies, an increase in demand for transportation fuel has been ‘minimal,’ as motorists deal with high prices at the pump.
   The IEA lowered its worldwide forecast for oil demand growth in the fourth quarter by 0.5 million barrels a day and by 0.3 million barrels a day for all of 2008.
   Global demand is seen as averaging 85.7 million barrels a day in 2007, an increase of 1.2 per cent over 2006, and 87.7 million barrels a day in 2008, up 2.3 per cent.
   In the 30 industrialised members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the IEA’s forecast has been lowered by 160,000 barrels a day in 2007 and 300,000 barrels a day next year.
   Demand growth in non-OECD countries is also projected to be lower by about 50,000 barrels a day in 2007 and 2008.
   But it cautioned: ‘This forecast assumes that China and the Middle East ... will remain both largely untouched by the US sub-prime woes and to a large extent insulated from international oil prices’ because of the cushioning effect of consumer subsidies.
   In China demand for oil should come to 7.5 billion baarrels a day in 2007, a 5.4 per cent gain on 2006 and 8.0 million barrels a day in 2008, up 5.6 per cent.
   The report noted that China in late October announced a 9.0 per cent hike in gasoline, diesel oil and jet fuel, in part to tackle product shortages.
   On the other side of the equation, the IEA said world oil supply increased by 1.4 million barrels a day in October compared with September, as the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries boosted supply by 410,000 barrels a day to 31.2 million barrels day, half of which came from Angola and Iraq.
   The report raised its estimates of output from OPEC powerhouse Saudi Arabia in September and said the kingdom was believed to have increased production by another 100,000 barrels a day in October to almost 8.9 million barrels a day.
   Higher output was also noted in Venezuela, Kuwait, Qatar, Nigeria, Algeria and Libya in October.
   Leaders from the 12 members of the cartel are to meet in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Saturday and Sunday for a rare summit, only the third in the organisation’s 47-year history.

Customs commissioners from across the country Tuesday recommended that the agreement with the Pre-Shipment Inspection companies should not be extended.
   The commissioners gave their views about the PSI companies at a meeting with the National Board of Revenue chairman, Muhammad Abdul Mazid, in the NBR conference room.
   The previous BNP-led alliance government appointed four PSI companies — Cotecna Inspection SA, SGS (Bangladesh) Limited, Bureau Veritas BIVAC (Bangladesh) Limited and Intertek Testing Limited — in August 2005 for three years to certify price, quality and quantity of imported goods.
   The customs commissioners urged the NBR chief to strengthen the audit system, increase the number of workforce and set up a strong database for the purpose.
   They also urged the NBR to appoint customs officials at those points from where Bangladesh imports various items at a large scale.
   NBR is now in a process to take opinions from various stakeholders, as the agreement with the PSI companies will expire in August next year.
   The NBR already received various types of allegations against the PSI companies about irregularities.
   NBR recently fined Cotecna Tk 97 lakh for showing lower price for Hummer car.

Japan’s economy rebounded more strongly than expected in the third quarter of 2007, easily avoiding recession thanks to brisk exports to China and other emerging markets, the government said Tuesday.
   The robust performance calmed fears that the world’s second-largest economy would be hit harder by the US housing slump in the third quarter, although analysts said growth was still vulnerable to a global slowdown.
   With Japanese share prices languishing at a 15-month low, the Bank of Japan decided Tuesday to leave its super-low interest rates unchanged at 0.5 per cent, where they have been since February.
   Japan’s gross domestic product grew by 0.6 per cent in the three months to September and at an annualised pace of 2.6 per cent, the Cabinet Office said.
   ‘This was a surprisingly firm outcome and in stark contrast to the consistently dismal print of economic data over that period,’ noted Glenn Maguire, chief Asia economist at Societe Generale in Hong Kong.
   Japan’s economy has been slowly recovering from a slump stretching back over a decade.
   But the revival stalled in the second quarter, when GDP shrank 0.4 per cent from the previous quarter as firms cut spending on new factories and equipment.
   A second consecutive quarter of negative growth would have seen Japan slip back into recession.
   The robust third-quarter performance beat market forecasts for a quarter-on-quarter expansion of 0.4 per cent and an annualised rate of 1.8 per cent.
   Brisk exports and increased investment by companies in new equipment and factories helped to drive the strong recovery, while weakness in the housing sector was a drag on growth.
   But Japan’s economy still faces ‘significant risks,’ said Graham Davis, director of the Economist Intelligence Unit in Tokyo
   ‘We think that the domestic economy is reasonably solid but it’s not strong enough to really drive the economy going forward,’ he said.
   ‘Japan is still very much reliant on international demand and I think you have to be concerned about how strong that’s going to be over the next three to six months.’
   The government welcomed the report as a sign that Japan’s economic recovery remains on track.
   ‘Except for the decrease in housing investment, the figures underscore brisk demand both inside and outside the country,’ said economic and fiscal policy minister Hiroko Ota.
   The return to positive growth will also be welcomed by the central bank but analysts still believe that stubborn deflation and worries about the health of the US economy mean another interest rate hike is unlikely in Japan this year.

Japan’s Shinsei Bank Ltd on Tuesday issued its second profit warning in less than three weeks as it revealed swelling losses from the US sub-prime loan crisis.
   Shinsei slashed its net profit forecast by 25.5 per cent to 23.1 billion yen ($210.3m) for the six months to September, which would be 40.5 per cent lower than a year earlier.
   Shinsei said it had set aside an additional 69 million dollars to cover losses on securities backed by residential securities in the United States.
   ‘We have continued to closely monitor the exposure and decided to make additional provisions for the interim period,’ it said.
   The bank had already slashed its interim net earning forecast by about 18 per cent on October 25.
   Financial markets have been roiled recently by fears that major banks could see further losses on securities backed by sub-prime mortgages to high-risk American homebuyers who are now unable to repay their loans.
   Other Japanese banks and brokerages have also reported losses from the sub-prime crisis but they are believed to be less exposed than some of their US and European counterparts as they generally avoid taking much risk.
   Shinsei left unchanged its forecast for a net profit of 62 billion yen for the full fiscal year.
   That forecast, which was lowered last month, would be a major improvement from the previous year when the group plunged to a net loss of 60.9 billion yen due to problems with its consumer finance unit.
   Shinsei Bank was Japan’s first lender to be bought by a foreign fund after its forerunner, Long Term Credit Bank, collapsed under a pile of bad debts in the late 1990s, requiring a government-funded bailout.

Thailand’s largest oil exploration firm, PTT Exploration and Production, said Tuesday it would invest at least one billion dollars over the next five years to develop its offshore gas project in Myanmar.
   PTTEP this year began exploration of the M-9 block in the southwestern Gulf of Martaban by working with Myanmar’s top state-run oil enterprise, Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise.
   The company plans to drill a more exploration wells this year and start installing production equipment in 2008, said PTTEP spokesman Sitthichai Jayant.
   ‘Our activities in the M-9 project so far have confirmed that the gas reserve of this block is promising,’ Sitthichai told AFP.
   ‘PTTEP has already laid down a development plan for M-9 which calls for an investment of at least one billion dollars starting next year onward. It usually takes five years for developing a gas project until it starts production.’
   The M-9 project is not included in PTTEP’s five-year investment plans for 2007-2011, which require 281 billion baht ($8.3b), Sitthichai said.
   The block has been the focus of PTTEP’s ongoing offshore gas projects in Myanmar’s Martaban Gulf.
   Hungry for energy, Thailand imports about 20 per cent of its gas from military-ruled Myanmar, which is under US and European sanctions, and is vying for a bigger share of its impoverished neighbour’s vast natural resources.
   State media in Myanmar previously estimated the M-9 block contained 8.0 trillion cubic feet of gas.
   Sitthichai said the company aimed to start initial production by 2011 for both local use and export.
   PTTEP wholly owns the M-9 block but Sitthichai said it was looking for potential investment partners.
   ‘We have been in talks with a state-owned oil company from Oman which are interested to co-invest in the project. We are likely to give them a minority stake of less than 10 per cent,’ Sitthichai said.
   Myanmar, one of the world’s poorest nations, is under a series of US and European economic sanctions imposed over the junta’s human rights abuses and its recent crackdown on pro-democracy protests.
   But the impact of the sanctions has been weakened as energy-hungry neighbours such as China, India and Thailand spend billions of dollars for a share of Myanmar’s vast energy resources to solve power problems at home.
   According to 2006 official figures, 13 foreign oil companies are working on 33 projects in Myanmar.

Guyana’s president Bharrat Jagdeo on Tuesday accused major Western nations of failing to combat money laundering in their own jurisdictions while pressing the Caribbean to enact a wide range of laws and regulations.
   Addressing the opening of the 34th Annual General Meeting and Conference of the Association of Caribbean Indigenous Banks, Jagdeo also vowed that Guyana would not continue to enact laws that make the financial services sector of the Caribbean unattractive.
   ‘We should make sure that we don’t have a movement of illegal money across our jurisdictions, but we must not legislate ourselves out of competitiveness and we must not put burden on our banking system that other countries don’t have,’ he said.
   Guyana’s revised Anti-money Laundering and Countering The Financing of Terrorism Bill has been sent to a bi-partisan parliamentary select committee for further consideration.
   He accused countries like the United States, United Kingdom and Luxembourg of having ‘tremendous double standards,’ and noted that they had not been blacklisted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s punishing Taxation Regime for ‘practicing imprudent lending’ — although several Caribbean countries were.
   Between 1999 and 2005, the Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Dominica, St Kitts-Nevis, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, Panama and Guatemala were all black-listed by the OECD’s Financial Action Task Force but were later de-listed after they had complied with international regimes and passed new laws and regulations to counter money laundering and terrorist financing.
   While the US State Department’s annual International Narcotics Control Strategy Reports continue to identify a number of Caribbean countries where money-laundering thrives, the Guyanese leader said most illicit financial transactions related to drug-trafficking.
   ‘But you don’t see the US on the blacklist,’ he said. ‘That’s where the financial transactions have their origin and the payment starts,’ he said, adding that a lot of ‘hot money’ was circulating in London from tax-evasion originating in the United Kingdom.

China’s inflation lingered at 10-year highs in October, the government said Tuesday, as major state newspapers carried a vow by premier Wen Jiabao to stabilise prices.
   The consumer price index was up 6.5 per cent last month from a year earlier, compared with 6.2 per cent in September and 6.5 per cent in August, the National Bureau of Statistics.
   China’s economy grew by 11.5 per cent in the third quarter and seems all but certain to record its fourth consecutive year of double-digit growth in 2007.
   The release of the data came as state media quoted Wen promising steps to ensure adequate supplies and stable prices of basic consumer commodities amid soaring inflation.
   ‘Prices have been on the rise these days and I’m aware that even a one-yuan (13-cent) increase in prices will affect people’s lives,’ Xinhua news agency quoted him as saying.
   The premier’s comments, made when he met with low-income families in Beijing Monday, were reported by most mainstream newspapers, as the government sought to calm its citizen fears over fast growing food and fuel prices.
   The spike in inflation last month was overwhelmingly led by a rise in food prices, which were up 17.6 per cent in October from a year earlier, the bureau said.
   By contrast, the prices of non-food items saw an increase of a modest 1.1 per cent, it said.
   Analysts say the high rate of inflation is likely to persist in November, meaning that the government would probably implement more interest rate hikes before year-end in an attempt to cool the economy.
   ‘We believe the central bank will likely respond with additional tightening measures including strict controls on bank lending and two more rate hikes before the end of this year,’ Goldman Sachs economist Yu Song wrote in a research note.
   Li Huiyong, a Shanghai-based economist with Shenyin Wanguo Securities, agreed.
   ‘The October data has reinforced the message that follows the release of the September data, that the economy is still relatively overheated,’ he told AFP.
   ‘This makes the implementation of a tightening policy more possible and overall, we believe the central bank will very likely raise the interest rate in the short term.’
   Rising food prices play a large part in the persistently high consumer price index, analysts say, but expect the index to ease next year as the price of pork, which was in short supply earlier this year, stabilises.
   Mo Qian, economist with Essence Securities in Beijing, believed the consumer price index had approached a peak.
   ‘In October, the main reason for the CPI rise is still the increase in pork prices. But we believe the rise in pork prices, which is not sustainable, will ease next year after supplies increase. We think it has reached a peak.’
   Sun Fanghong, Shenzhen-based analyst with Ping An Securities, expected inflation to slow in the last quarter and next year.
   ‘We believe CPI will ease in the next two months to around six per cent and around four or 4.5 per cent for 2008 full year.’

Interest rates in the 13-nation eurozone could rise if financial turbulence sparked by the US home loan crisis is contained, the IMF predicted Monday.
   ‘In the euro area and several other advanced economies, monetary policy has been appropriately kept on hold in view of the downside risks associated with the financial turmoil,’ the International Monetary Fund said in a report.
   ‘The baseline forecast presumes these risks to dissipate gradually, and a further tightening may then be required. Such a stance would of course need to be reconsidered if the risks materialized and the slowdown became protracted,’ it said.
   The IMF’s Regional Economic Outlook for Europe report was on the whole optimistic, noting that ‘strong fundamentals should allow the European economy to weather the current financial turbulence relatively well.’
   It said that if the turbulence recedes, the impact on growth should be manageable.
   ‘A buoyant global economy, combined with generally sound macroeconomic policies and increasing trade and financial integration in Europe, have yielded a buoyant regional economy with clear growth dividends for advanced economies and convergence benefits for emerging Europe,’ the report said.

Iran on Tuesday gave India a four-month deadline to formally agree its participation in a multi-billion dollar project to transport Iranian gas to India via Pakistan.
   The warning came after Iran and Pakistan on Saturday finalised the content of the 7.4 billion dollars gas export deal — originally a tripartite project — which is scheduled to be signed within a month.
   ‘I don’t think we would wait for them India more than three or four months,’ the managing director of National Iranian Gas Exports Company, Nosratollah Seifi, told reporters.
   However, he expressed hope that New Delhi would still join the much-delayed project, under which energy-poor India would receive 30 million cubic metres per day of Iranian gas.
   ‘I think India will join the gas exports project because of its extreme and immediate need for energy,’ he said. Seifi said the delay by India, an increasingly important US ally, was due to both energy and political issues.
   ‘They have domestic issues and we understand this. They think about whether to use nuclear energy... there are also foreign pressures.’
   In New Delhi, petrololeum minister Murli Deora said India remained interested in a deal.
   ‘Before the next tri-partite meeting, a bilateral meeting between India and Pakistan is necessary to decide on transportation tariff, transit fees, etcetera and a common stand on the price revision clause proposed by Iran,’ he told a media conference.

Yahoo Inc has struck new deals to offer mobile phone Web services through nine network operators across Asia, bolstering its increasing lead in the fastest growing regional market for mobile services by users.
   The Silicon Valley-based Internet company also said on Tuesday that it was introducing a mobile service called Yahoo Go in traditional Chinese in Taiwan. These deals build on six earlier Asian carrier partnerships announced in June.
   ‘Those 16 deals will give us roughly 40 per cent coverage of all subscribers in those countries,’ Yahoo’s top mobile executive, Marco Boerries, said in a phone interview.
   Yahoo is racing to attract subscribers to Internet services delivered via mobile phones rather than computer browsers as rival Google Inc unveiled a plan’s to offer software to create a new class of Internet-ready phones.
   Telecom carriers and Internet service providers are looking to capture a chunk of a market that research firm Gartner Inc sees generating advertising sales of $12.8 billion by 2011.
   Boerries said there were more deals coming. ‘We have a clear goal to lead the market. The goal is to exceed 50 per cent.’
   In Japan and China, Yahoo operates through joint ventures that handle all deal-making with mobile operators, Boerries said. It is working with China’s Alibaba.com Corp on deals with carriers in the world’s biggest mobile market.
   Yahoo Japan is majority-owned by Softbank, the country’s No 3 mobile operator. Yahoo Web services also are offered via No 1 carrier NTT DoCoMo via a non-exclusive deal.
   The Yahoo partnership deals to be unveiled on Tuesday at an industry trade fair in Macau include three Indian carriers: Aircel Ltd, BPL Mobile and BSNL; two Malaysian carriers: DiGi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd and PT Excelcomindo Pratama Tbk two Indonesian carriers: Hutch 3 and PT Indosat Tbk, along with PCCW Mobile HK Ltd of Hong Kong and Starhub Ltd of Singapore.
   Together with six earlier Asian partnerships set in June, Yahoo now has exclusive or preferred deals to have its Internet services featured on four of India’s top eight carriers; all of Indonesia’s top four carriers; Malaysia’s No 1 and No 3 carriers; and the No 2 and 3 carriers in Hong Kong.

German investor confidence fell sharply in November, underscoring that an international financial crisis is still playing out in the biggest eurozone economy, a widely watched survey showed Tuesday.
   The report from the ZEW economic institute also found that the weak dollar, and the fast appreciating euro, had begun to weigh on German exports.
   The institute’s indicator of German business sentiment fell to an indexed minus 32.5 points, from minus 18.1 points in October, ZEW said in a statement.
   ‘The financial crisis is not over yet,’ a statement quoted ZEW president Wolfgang Franz as saying.
   ‘It is therefore to be expected that the economic development may lose considerable speed.’
   The survey of 269 financial analysts and institutional investors gives an indication of the sector’s medium-term expectations for economic activity and capital markets.
   ZEW said that ‘owing to the continuously extending sub-prime crisis the financial market experts have re-adjusted their economic expectations. They particularly expect a considerable economic downturn in the United States.’ Waves of defaults on high-risk mortgages in the United States, the so-called sub-prime market, led banks and financial institutions to sharply curtail credit worldwide, choking off an essential ingredient for economic growth.
   Meanwhile, ‘the weak US-dollar has made business conditions for German exporting firms more difficult,’ ZEW added. Additional risks stemmed from oil rates that are now near 100 dollars a barrel, and a surge in consumer prices.
   For the 13-nation eurozone, economic expectations also dropped sharply, though a measure of the current economic situation decreased by a much smaller amount, and stood at plus 60.6 points, a level which ZEW qualified as ‘good.’

The Los Angeles Auto Show gets underway Wednesday with automakers aiming to showcase eco-friendly or fuel-efficient cars, as world oil prices threaten to smash the 100 dollars a barrel mark.
   Around one million people are expected to visit the 12-day show, regarded as the second most important event of its kind in the United States behind January’s annual exhibition in Detroit.
   Roughly 14 million of Los Angeles’ 16 million people are drivers, with an average of 3.1 cars per household in a metropolitan area covering 12,500 square kilometers that is criss-crossed by hundreds of kilometers of freeways.
   In the city’s millionaire enclaves like Beverly Hills, Malibu and Bel Air, luxury Italian sports cars, sleek German-made limousines or hulking American 4x4 are often the vehicle of choice.
   ‘The car means more to people in Los Angeles than it means to other people in the world,’ said Leslie Kendall, a curator of the Petersen Museum, which is dedicated to cars. ‘You are what you drive in LA,’ Kendall added.
   ‘The car is another layer of clothing that you put on after you get dressed.’

The BRAC Bank Limited has recently inaugurated its new branch at Shyamoli and relocated branch at Gulshan in Dhaka.
   Fazle Hasan Abed, chairman of BRAC Bank, inaugurated the new Shyamoli branch and relocated Gulshan branch, said a press release.
   Imran Rahman, managing director and chief executive officer of BRAC Bank, other senior officials of the bank, local dignitaries and a large number of customers of the bank were also present at the inauguration ceremonies.
   Both the branches have ATM (automated teller machine) facilities for providing 24-hour cash withdrawal facility for its customers.

A long term consortium loan agreement involving Tk 3655.39 lakh was signed between the Janata Bank, Sonali Bank, Agrani Bank and Uttara Bank, and the Bangladesh Telecom Ltd at a city hotel on Monday.
   Suhel Ahmed Choudhury, chairman of the board of directors of Janata Bank (lead bank), was present on the occasion as chief guest, said a press release.
   Md Mukter Hussain, managing director of Janata Bank, SM Aminur Rahman, managing director of Sonali Bank, Syed Abdul Hamid, managing director of Agrani Bank, and Sheikh Amin Uddin Ahmed, consultant of Uttara Bank Ltd, and other high officials of the banks were present on the occasion.

The dollar on Tuesday rebounded from an 18-month low against the yen as Tokyo voiced concern about the recent spike in the value of the Japanese currency, dealers said.
   The euro rose against the dollar, despite news that German investor confidence fell sharply in November.
   In European trade, the euro climbed to 1.4599 dollars, from 1.4529 late in New York on Monday.
   The dollar gained to 109.95 yen from 109.41 on Monday, when it had also hit an eighteen month low of 109.13 yen.
   There was speculation that Japan will not tolerate a sudden surge in its currency because it would hurt its exports and threaten economic growth.
   Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda told the Financial Times that the yen was rising ‘too fast’ although in the longer run a stronger currency was not necessarily a bad thing.
   Fukuda said that speculative movements ‘need to be kept in check,’ although he stopped short of threatening intervention on the foreign exchange market to halt the yen’s recent surge.
   His comments came as Japan’s government said the nation’s economy rebounded more strongly than expected in the third quarter of 2007, easily avoiding recession thanks to brisk exports to China and other emerging markets.
   ‘The stronger than expected real GDP data for the third quarter in Japan is unlikely to ease the concerns amongst Japanese politicians over the scale of yen appreciation in recent days,’ said Derek Halpenny, senior currency economist at The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi.
   Market participants meanwhile largely ignored a decision by the Bank of Japan to leave its key interest rate unchanged at 0.5 per cent, where it has been since February.
   In Europe, traders were digesting the latest report on German business confidence. The ZEW economic institute’s indicator fell to an indexed minus 32.5 points in November, from minus 18.1 points in October.
   The report underscored the fact that an international financial crisis is still playing out in the biggest eurozone economy. The institute also found that the weak dollar, and the fast appreciating euro, had begun to weigh on German exports.
   ‘Some of the survey’s pessimism may be a little overdone,’ said Calyon strategist Stuart Bennett.
   ‘The German economy will slow, but it was expected to slow even before the credit crisis struck home. That slowdown in activity is now likely to be more severe, and weigh on investment, but overall the German GDP outlook remains solid.
   ‘Admittedly, the strong euro remains an ever-present threat to this forecast, but up to now German exporters have been able to handle the currency’s appreciation, posting a wider trade surplus in September,’ he added.
   In European trade Tuesday, the euro changed hands at 1.4599 dollars, against 1.4529 dollars late on Monday, at 160.40 yen, 0.7061 pounds, and 1.6436 Swiss francs.
   The dollar stood at 109.95 yen, and 1.1266 Swiss francs.
   The pound was at 2.0662 dollars.
   In London, the price of gold dipped to 803.45 dollars per ounce, from 803.50 dollars late on Monday.

India concerned at high oil prices
India, which imports 70 per cent of its oil needs, is ‘very concerned’ about crude prices rising to nearly 100 dollars, petroleum minister Murli Deora said Tuesday. ‘As the international oil prices are close to 100 dollars per barrel ... we are very concerned,’ he told a news conference in the capital. But the Indian government, which heavily sub-sidises fuel, had no plans to push up prices at the pumps to compensate for losses. ‘We don’t want to burden the poor man... Let the prices stabilise and then we will take a decision,’ the minister said. Oil futures have pulled back from a record-breaking run that pushed them to all-time highs last week of 98.62 dollars in New York. Crude prices continued to fall Tuesday in London, where Brent for December delivery dropped 76 cents from Monday to 91.22 dollars. India is seeking new supplies of oil and gas from abroad and ramping up production from domestic sources to fuel its rapid economic growth.
— AFP

Pakistan, UAE sign oil refinery deal
Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday signed a five-billion-dollar agreement to build an oil refinery near the port city of Karachi, the prime minister’s office announced. Prime minister Shaukat Aziz said the memorandum of understanding signalled Pakistan’s biggest-ever foreign investment. The oil refinery is to be built at Khalifa Point in southern Baluchistan province, near Karachi. It would handle 200,000 to 300,000 barrels a day under a joint arrangement between Abu Dhabi’s International Petroleum Investment Company and Pakistan’s Pak Arab Refinery Limited.
— AFP