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Dhaka has a prospect of sending technically skilled people to Nordic countries where they would get highly paid jobs after learning the local languages and obtaining technical degrees, the Bangladesh ambassador to Sweden reports to the government.
   Infusion of foreign labour into the job markets of Nordic countries — Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Iceland — is expected to increase in the coming years owing to an economic boom, ageing problem, expansion of the European Union, and the process of globalisation.
   ‘If Bangladeshi workers can find ways to overcome the language barrier and meet other requirements, it may be possible for them to enter the job markets of these countries in significant numbers,’ the ambassador, Mohammad Azizul Haque, wrote to the government recently.
   He was earlier asked to report on employment opportunities for Bangladeshi workers in the Nordic countries of his concurrent accreditation, which have a regulated labour market and are well known for their social policy of not discriminating in wages paid to native and foreign workers.
   About five million Bangladeshi workers are now employed abroad, mostly in low-paid jobs, mainly in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, partially in Europe and a small number in North America.
   ‘Language is the most formidable barrier for Bangladeshi workers as the people of each of the Nordic countries only use their own language in their daily life,’ the ambassador pointed out in his report sent to the expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment ministry and the Foreign Office.
   Sweden, for example, needs many hundred doctors, but Bangladeshi physicians will have to secure medical degree from there to be eligible to practise or get employed, the report said. Degrees such as MBBS or FCPS will only make Bangladeshi doctors qualify to sit professional examinations for employment in Sweden.
   There are now about 50 Bangladeshi doctors in Sweden.
   The laws of Sweden provide opportunity for Bangladeshi doctors to migrate to the country as relatives of Bangladeshi expatiates there, the report said, adding that Bangladeshi doctors could also apply for higher studies or research fellowships in Swedish hospitals and universities.
   Ambassador Aziz categorically mentioned that engineers who graduated from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, information and communication technology experts, and highly skilled workers could find jobs in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. Such opportunities are less in Finland and negligible in Iceland.
   For Bangladesh, this potential manpower export market remains dormant because, as the ambassador said, these countries ‘do not look for cheap labour from third world countries, unlike the countries of the Middle East’.
   The report said the Nordic countries, with their state of technological advancement, would need increasing number of engineers, especially construction engineers and ICT professionals, in the coming days.
   Moreover, he said, a change in political opinion in the Nordic countries in favour of large-scale import of labour from non-European countries to meet the growing manpower demand would open up opportunities for numerous Bangladeshi workers to enter the Nordic job markets.

A two-member delegation of food and veterinary mission of European Union arrived in Khulna Friday to look over the shrimp production and processing in the country’s South-western region for export.
   The EU delegation comprised of John Mac and Raj Patel, were staying at hotel Castle Salam in the Khulna Metropolitan City on the first day of their four-day visit to the region.
   Bangladesh Frozen Foods Exporters’ Association said the team members will visit different shrimp enclosures, depots, shrimp arrival places, laboratories, shrimp processing plants and other establishments related to shrimp export.
   On Saturday, they will undertake a tour to the Sundarbans and inspect fishing in different rivers and canals of the world’s largest mangrove forest.
   On Sunday, they will visit the shrimp arrival places at Phaltita area under Fakirhat upazila and some shrimp enclosures in Rampal upazila in Bagerhat district, and quality control department laboratory of fisheries department and shrimp processing plants in Khulna.
   On Monday, the EU delegates will visit some shrimp hatcheries and processing plants in Bagerhat in the morning and leave Khulna for Chittagong, said the BFFA sources, adding that they will leave Bangladesh on Thursday.
   The sources said during the visit, the team will inspect the quality control system at shrimp processing plants to find out causes of presence of nitrophuran bacteria in shrimps as well as see themselves whether all the rules of government and the EU are followed at different steps of shrimp production and processing for export.
   Quazi Belayet Hossain, president of Bangladesh Frozen Foods Exporters’ Association, while talking to New Age hoped that the EU team’s inspection report on Bangladesh’s shrimps production and processing for export would be satisfactory.
   He said the government
   and the shrimp exporters are careful about the quality of products and have taken various measures for maintaining the quality at different levels of shrimp production and processing.

Proposed sanctions introduced in the US House of Representatives would pressure US energy giant Chevron to pull its investment from Myanmar, which rights activists say is helping prop up the ruling military junta.
   Under the strategy, similar to one used against US companies during the anti-apartheid campaign in South Africa, the legislation introduced Thursday would end tax write-offs enjoyed by Chevron on revenues earned from its natural gas project in Myanmar.
   Chevron will also be barred from making any payments to the junta from its joint venture with French oil giant Total, Thailand’s PTT Exploration and Production, and Myanmar’s Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise operating the lucrative Yadana gas fields, congressional aides said.
   The sanctions were introduced as part of a package of new US measures aimed at punishing the military regime for its recent crackdown on pro-democracy protests led by Buddhist monks that left at least 13 people dead and 3,000 detained.
   Under US law, ‘no deduction or credit against tax shall be allowed ... with respect to amounts paid or incurred with respect to’ the junta or joint production agreement of the Yadana gas project, a copy of the proposed legislation reads.
   Nether US citizens or US institutions can make any ‘direct or indirect payments of any tax, cancellation penalty, or any other amount’ to the junta, according to the measure, known as the Block Burmese JADE (Junta’s Anti-Democratic Efforts) Act of 2007.
   The proposal was introduced by Tom Lantos, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
   ‘It is not mandating Chevron pull out of Burma, but the provisions are tough enough to make them rethink their operations in that country,’ a congressional aide told AFP, referring to Myanmar by its former name.
   Chevron is one of biggest Western companies in Myanmar, holding a 28 percent minority share in the Yadana natural gas project following its acquisition of another US energy giant, Unocal, in 2005.
   The United States has already imposed substantial trade, investment and diplomatic sanctions on Myanmar, but Chevron’s operations predate an enhanced 2003 US trade embargo.
   Under Myanmar law, if Chevron sold its stake, it may have to pay the military junta much of the company’s capital gains on the project — estimated to be around 500 million dollars. The proposed sanctions would bar Chevron from making such a payment.
   Legislative aides said the proposal was similar to legislation approved in the late 1980s when the US Congress, in a bid to fight apartheid in South Africa, stopped US corporations based in the country from deducting taxes imposed by authorities in Pretoria. It led to a higher tax burden, and several US companies chose to withdraw.
   Other measures unveiled in the sanctions package were aimed at stopping the US import of gemstones from Myanmar through third countries, and tightening a freeze on the assets of the country’s political and military leaders.
   In addition, steps will be taken to prevent visits to the United States by military junta officials directly linked to the recent bloody crackdown.
   The UN Security Council last week scolded the junta for its brutal crackdown on protests, and urged the regime to heed the UN’s calls for talks with pro-democracy groups and called for the release of political prisoners.

The management of the embattled UN food agency and its 189 member states must ‘co-own’ a sweeping reform process to get the organisation ‘back on its feet,’ a panel of outside experts said Thursday.
   ‘The FAO has been attempting reforms for two decades now with, frankly, very little success,’ said Leif Christofferson, team leader of a three-year outside evaluation of the Food and Agriculture Organisation.
   ‘There needs to be co-ownership of the reform process between governments and management,’ he told a news conference called to discuss the report released by the Independent External Evaluation team in August.
   The FAO management is to issue a formal response to the report ‘we hope next week,’ said Nicholas Parsons, the Rome-based agency’s communications director.
   Management and the member states are to meet next month to decide the way forward, what the team says should take the form of a three-to-four-year action plan to effect structural, strategic, policy, and cultural changes.
   ‘The main thing is what happens in November,’ Christofferson said. ‘This is a thing to be done jointly’ by the secretariat and the member states. The report aims ‘to set in motion a series of steps to bring this organisation back on its feet.’
   FAO director general Jacques Diouf called the report a ‘major milestone’ in the organisation’s 62-year history.
   It ‘offers a timely opportunity for the membership to take action towards a more strategically oriented, effective and responsive organisation,’ said Diouf, who had already ‘welcomed’ the damning report in August, in a statement Thursday.
   The experts said the process faces overwhelming skepticism matched by an equally intense yearning for change.
   A survey of FAO staff found that 94 per cent would support a much-needed overhaul, while the same number ‘don’t believe it will happen,’ according to Keith Bezanson, the principal author of the report.
   The 395-page report, commissioned by the UN body, said: ‘FAO is today on the brink. If the current muddle-through strategy ... is continued, the result will be increasingly rapid decline.’
   ‘The challenge is to re-invent it before it fades into insignificance.’
   The FAO has an annual budget of 370 million dollars and employs more than 3,000 people.
   The evaluation, which Christofferson said was ‘quite rare’ for its comprehensiveness and the fact that it addressed institutional and structural problems, involved visits to 35 countries, 2,500 interviews and a dozen questionnaires with thousands of responses.
   FAO’s mission is to improve nutrition and agricultural productivity, better the lives of rural populations, contribute to the growth of the world economy, and achieve universal food security.

The chief negotiator guiding key WTO talks on reducing barriers to global agricultural trade, Crawford Falconer, on Friday gave the 151 member states two weeks to narrow their differences.
   Falconer told a meeting at the World Trade Organisation that a negotiating drive launched last month had not bridged the gap enough in ‘a number of areas’ after six years of troubled talks in the Doha Round, trade sources said.
   ‘I am looking for progress to be made,’ Falconer was quoted as saying, giving member states until November 2.
   The head of the WTO’s agriculture committee, who is also New Zeland’s ambassador at the WTO, told hisfellow negotiators that if he gave them seven weeks, ‘you will take 23.’

A big project involving Tk 52.99 crore is being implemented to reach the agro-engineering and technology at the farmers level to help them enhance the agriculture production in the region.
   Officials told BSS today that the Department of Agriculture Extension has been implementing the project, began in July in 2005, to make the modern technologies acceptable at the field level as demand for food is gradually increasing with the rise in population.
   They said the five-year project on ‘Production Enhancement and Creation of Rural Employment through Extension of Agriculture Engineering Technology’ is being implemented in 112 upazilas of 56 districts in the country.
   Main objectives of the project are to make the agriculture sector profitable by reducing expenditures at all spheres of production and also to upgrade it.
   Besides extension of irrigation area through time-befitting Management, the project seeks to increase crop intensity along with quality development and resist misuse through proper application of agriculture machinery.
   To attain the goal, the officials said, steps are being taken to appoint agriculture engineers at the upazila level aimed at motivating the farmers towards using modern agriculture engineering technologies and re- excavating the rural derelict canals, ponds and other water bodies to preserve surface water during the dry seasons. Under the project, need-based training will be provided to the users, drivers and mechanics of the agriculture machinery. Besides, a database related to agro-machinery and small irrigation management will be developed. The officials said modern machinery like power tiller, seeder, weeder, sprayer, self-propelled reaper, power thresher and drier are being distributed among the farmers groups.
   Side by side, demonstrations, training, farmers rally, workshop and agriculture machinery fair are being arranged in connection with irrigation management, canal improving, surface-water conservation and removing stagnant water.

The ailing US dollar hit another record low versus the euro on Friday as the market fretted over gloomy US economic prospects ahead of a G7 finance meeting in Washington, dealers said.
   In early European trade, the euro jumped to a record 1.4319 dollars, the highest level since the single currency’s creation in 1999. It later stood at 1.4281 dollars.
   The dollar’s dwindling value has been thrown into the limelight ahead of the imminent gathering of Group of Seven finance ministers and central bank chiefs in Washington on Friday.
   US treasury secretary Henry Paulson continues to voice confidence in a ‘strong dollar’ — but the currency’s value has declined sharply in the past year.
   Nervousness about the health of the global economy and the meet also pushed up the yen, which is often sold by speculators to fund risky ‘carry trade’ investments in high-yielding assets, analysts said.
   Dealers said players were betting that G7 chiefs would refrain from taking any action to try to bolster the sagging greenback despite growing concern in Europe about the strong euro’s effect on eurozone exporters.
   ‘There is already some speculation that officials will attempt to prop up the dollar at the G7 finance ministers’ meeting,’ said Julian Jessop of Capital Economics.
   ‘But we expect this meeting to be a non-event for the markets.’
   In recent years, G7 officials have refrained from any direct signal to impact currencies.
   While French and Italian politicians have voiced concerns about the euro’s rise, Germany and other eurozone countries appear more relaxed about it.
   Analysts said coordinated action by the G7 was unlikely because the strength of the euro reflected the good health of the eurozone economies.
   ‘The strong euro reflects robust growth in the eurozone, while concerns over the outlook for the US economy grew’ after higher than expected weekly jobless claims, said Hiroshi Sakurai, analyst at Mizuho Investors Securities.
   The market was also keeping an eye on oil prices, which hit a record high 90.02 dollars per barrel in New York on concerns about tensions between Turkey and Iraq, traders said.
   In recent weeks, the dollar has been undermined by the increased prospect of another US interest rate cut later this month, after the Federal Reserve slashed its key rate last month by a half-point to 4.75 per cent.
   Lower borrowing costs in the United States reduce interest in the dollar and boost the attractiveness of the euro.
   In early European trade Friday, the euro changed hands at 1.4281 dollars, against 1.4297 dollars late Thursday, 164.56 yen (165.32), 0.6979 pounds (0.6992) and 1.6724 Swiss francs (1.6721).
   The dollar stood at 115.26 yen (115.62) and 1.1712 Swiss francs (1.1693).
   The pound was at 2.0466 dollars (2.0444).
   In London, the price of gold rose to 768.60 dollars per ounce at the morning fixing from 764.15 dollars late Thursday.

Oil was close to 90 dollars a barrel in Asia Friday on fears Iraqi crude exports will be disrupted if Turkey attacks Kurdish rebels across the border, traders said.
   They said a weakening US dollar and global supply jitters also drove prices higher.
   At 11am, New York’s main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in November, was up five cents at 89.52 dollars a barrel.
   The contract had jumped 2.07 dollars to a record close of 89.47 dollars in New York on Thursday, and surged to a fresh all-time high of 90.02 in after-hours electronic trading.
   Brent North Sea crude for December delivery was down five cents to 84.55 after climbing to a new all-time high of 84.80 dollars in London.
   Oil prices have pushed higher this week amid worries over Turkey-Iraq and a weakening greenback, which makes dollar-priced commodities such as oil cheaper for buyers with stronger currencies and therefore lifts crude demand.
   The euro hit a record high of 1.4310 dollars on Thursday.
   Tetsu Emori, a fund manager at Astmax in Tokyo, said a portion of Iraqi crude from its northern oilfields is exported from Turkey because it is easier to do so.
   ‘This is why traders are looking closely at the situation along the border, Emori said. ‘There are some Iraqi exports waiting to be transported but that could not because of the tension. That’s the main factor.’
   Turkey said Thursday it would pursue diplomacy to defuse a crisis over Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq as Baghdad made fresh appeals to dissuade its neighbour from possible military action.
   The Turkish parliament Wednesday approved a motion authorising military strikes against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which is accused of using bases in northern Iraq for attacks on targets across the border in Turkey.
   ‘The issue seems no longer to be whether oil will reach 100 dollars per barrel, but when’ said Barclays Capital analyst Kevin Norrish. Traders are also worried about the weakening US dollar and tight global energy supplies, particularly during the Northern Hemisphere winter, when demand surges for heating fuel.
   ‘The advance in oil prices continued to be driven by a similar mix of forces to those that have been at work for much of the past week,’ Australia’s Commonwealth Bank said in a market commentary.

India inflation falls
to 5-yr lows
India’s inflation rate has edged further down around five-year lows, official data showed Friday, as food prices continued to fall. Annual inflation slowed to 3.07 per cent for the week ended October 6, compared to 3.26 per cent in the previous week, according to the wholesale price index, India’s most watched cost-of-living monitor. The annual rate of inflation stood at 5.41 per cent a year ago. Prices of fruits and vegetables dropped as did some manufactured goods. Inflation has gradually dropped from two-year highs of nearly seven per cent earlier this year. Interest rates are at five-year highs and the Reserve Bank of India will review the figures at its next monetary policy committee meeting on October 30.
— AFP

China inflation
rate at 6.2pc
China’s consumer price index rose 6.2 per cent in September compared with a year earlier, a government official said Thursday, adding inflation was expected to remain high. In the first nine months of the year, consumer prices were up 4.1 per cent, the vice-chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, Zhu Zhixin, told reporters. ‘We estimate the price level will remain high for quite some time,’ Zhu said. Zhu said further monetary measures would be taken to address the high inflation rate, but he did not go into specifics. Consumer prices soared 6.5 per cent in August, the highest rate in more than a decade. Zhu highlighted food and fuel prices were again the main reason for high inflation, which is well above the government’s annual target of 3.0 per cent. ‘We have an old saying in China, ‘when the grain price rises, the price of everything rises.’ So long as we retain food prices at a stable level, we will keep overall retail prices at a stable level,’ he said.
— AFP

Philippine risks isolation for deal
As Asian economic integration gathers pace, the Philippines risks isolation and millions of dollars of potential investment if its Senate rejects a free-trade deal with Japan, an expert warned Friday. ‘In terms of trade we’ll be at a competitive disadvantage with our neighbours who are negotiating or implementing economic partnership agreements with Japan,’ said Ceferino Rodolfo, of the University of Asia and the Pacific. The Senate, Manila’s treaty-ratifying body, has dragged its feet on the deal with Tokyo, the country’s number-two trading partner.
— AFP