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Bangladeshi apparel manufacturers, often blamed for paying the lowest minimum wages to workers, are in a race to cut export prices to stay competitive, a New Age investigation reveals.
   The race, which industry leaders called suicidal, cost the industry about 421 million euros [about Tk 4,000 crore] in 2007 in lost export revenues from T-shirt sales in the European Union market, a rough estimate suggests.
   The amount is even bigger than foreign currencies equivalent of Tk 3087 crore Bangladesh needed to pay rice import bills, trade data showed.
   Exporters slashed T-shirt prices by 27 per cent on an average for EU destinations last year.
   Labour leaders wondered how the apparel factory owners could get involved in an unfair price game and risk the industry’s future, when lakhs of low-paid workers were struggling for their survival with food prices reaching record highs.
   Trade experts said due to their concentration on low-cost and high-volume productions, Bangladeshi suppliers were made scapegoats and victims of price manipulation by global buyers.
   Exporters’ associations seemed to have woken up to the danger of the uncheck price cut and planned preventive measures like imposition of minimum export prices (MEPs) on certain common categories of low-cost apparels.
   ‘We are seriously planning to apply MEP for certain categories of basic knitwear including plain T-shirts,’ Fazlul Hoque, president of the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association, told New Age on Wednesday.
   Minimum export prices would be discussed at the association’s annual general meeting later this week. ‘Once MEP is enforced, BKMEA, while processing export orders, will be in a position to check exports at unsustainably low prices,’ he said.
   The BKMEA office often finds that white and plain T-shirts per dozen were being exported at as low as $9 per dozen while the cost of required knitted cotton fabrics (weighting 140 grams per square metre) would be more. ‘Such prices are just suicidal. We are killing ourselves,’ Hoque said.
   Such drastic price cuts limited T-shirt export earning growth to only 5 per cent while shipments increased by more than 45 per cent to 126 crore pieces.
   According to European Commission’s trade data, average export price of a Made-in Bangladesh T-shirt in 2007 dipped to 0.95 euros, lower by 27.23 per cent than 1.30 euros quoted in 2006.
   ‘Unhealthy and irresponsible competitions among the exporters here are threatening their own existence in the long run,’ said Anwar-Ul-Alam Chowdhury Parvez, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association.
   He noted that mainly the emerging and big players having composite manufacturing facilities were leading the price cuts. ‘They are abruptly slashing mark-ups at different stages of production, not even doing the real cost analysis.’
   While owners of composite manufacturing units abruptly slash prices, small factories, which do only cutting and sewing jobs, face pressures from buyers seeking more and more cuts in export prices, the industry leader pointed out.
   Cutting and sewing factories are not the lone sufferers.
   By neglecting cost analysis of their long-term overhead costs and investments, many composite factories are getting sick and risking their existence in the long run, he warned.
   ‘The industry should realise that due to labour intensive operations, small factories hold the most potentials for Bangladesh. We need to keep them in business by ensuring fair play in the trade,’ Parvez said.
   Nazma Akter, a leader of garment workers, said dressmakers always found declining prices a good excuse for offering poor pay to workers.
   ‘We now see that most exporters do not have the skills for bargaining, which erodes their earnings. But workers are paying for the owners’ inefficiency and their wages reached rock bottom,’ she said.
   Industry experts echoed Nazma as they stressed product diversification and better skills for negotiation and marketing to prevent export prices from falling further.
   ‘Bangladeshi manufacturers mostly concentrate on more volumes of production to increase their earnings, so they become scapegoats in a buyers-driven market,’ said Mustafizur Rahman, an international trade analyst.
   He suggested “a common standpoint” of two associations of the apparel industry— BGMEA and BKMEA— to check price cuts.
   Entrepreneurs should concentrate more on value-added and fashionable products for moving global up-market, said Mustafizur, executive director of the Centre for Policy Dialogue.
   Increased capacity for supplying to up-market importers will make Bangladesh’s apparel trade sustainable, the trade expert said, referring to the success of Turkish knitwear exporters.
   According to Turkish Knitwear Industrialists Association, the country exported less than 50 crore pieces of knitwear, two-fifths of Bangladesh’s, but earned 1.79 billion euros which is 50 per cent more than Bangladesh’s earnings.

The general index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange on Wednesday strikes its record high of 3120.51 points mainly due to rise in share prices of the power, bank and pharmaceutical stocks, said market analysts.
   The DSE benchmark gained 22.27 points or 0.72 per cent. The index’s previous high was at 3098.24 on Tuesday.
   ‘Investors bought comparatively low-priced shares with a view to making capital gains,’ said Moin Al Kashem, senior vice-president of Prime Finance and Investment. He said in recent times investors were quickly shifting their interest in the stocks of one sector from another expecting gains.
   The stock market analyst said it was a sign of inefficiency of the market. It, however, is not unusual in a market which faces dearth of securities, he added.
   The DSE blue chips index, DSE20, gained 21.56 points or 0.91 per cent to close at 2380.17 on Wednesday.
   Chittagong Stock Exchange’s selective categories index gained 34.80 points or 0.63 per cent to close at 5566.83, while its blue chips index, CSE30, advanced by 56.58 points or 0.76 per cent to finish at 7471.22.
   Of the total 254 issues traded at the DSE, 147 advanced, 100 declined and seven remained unchanged while out of 159 issues traded at the CSE, 81 posted gains, 74 dropped and four remained unchanged.
   Turnover at the DSE, however, decreased to Tk 326.52 crore from the Tuesday’s all-time high of Tk 412.27 crore and the CSE turnover went down to Tk 46.89 crore from Tk 62.46 crore.
   The Aims 1st Mutual Fund topped the turnover leaders at the DSE with total transaction of Tk 15.19 crore. Other turnover leaders at the prime bourse were Jamuna Oil Company, Meghna Petroleum, Beximco Pharmaceuticals, Dhaka Electric Supply Company, Square Pharmaceuticals, Keya Cosmetics, Apex Tannery, AB Bank and IFIC Bank.

The chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, on Wednesday called upon all entrepreneurs of the country’s textile sector to give proper attention to all the relevant matters of the workers for ensuring their welfare.
   He assured that the government would always remain beside the entrepreneurs as dedicated supporter and auxiliary force for industrialisation and hoped that the entrepreneurs would put in all-out strength in industrialisation of the country in the days ahead.
   The head of the caretaker government made the call while inaugurating a 3-day exposition of textiles styled TEXBANGLA 2008, fourth of its kind, organised by the Bangladesh Textile Mills Association at the Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Centre.
   ‘Made in Bangladesh’ is the theme of this year’s expo that got off with a different form as it coincided with the silver jubilee of the BTMA.
   TexBangla is the prime display event of the products of the BTMA member-mills. The exhibition is designed to showcase world-class textile products — from yarn to fabrics manufactured in private sector textile mills of Bangladesh. A total of 44 textile mills and factories and groups are participating in the exhibition.
   Yarn produced by BTMA member mills meets 85 to 90 per cent demand of export-oriented knit garment industries while 40 per cent demand of fabrics of oven garment exporters.
   The finance adviser, Mirza Azizul Islam, textile and jute adviser M Anwarul Iqbal, commerce adviser Hossain Zillur Rahman and BTMA president Abdul Hai Sarkar also spoke at the inaugural function. Leaders of various business organisations, owners of textile mills and industries and entrepreneurs were among others present at the function.
   The chief adviser later opened the exhibition and went round some stalls of the fair.
   The chief adviser suggested proper coordination among all sub-sectors of the textile sector for facing the multifarious challenges of market economy, as the sub-sectors are supplementary to each other. He urged the entrepreneurs to be more attentive in further increasing working efficiency and productivity through total utilisation of the facilities provided by the government.
   ‘There is no alternative to it to survive on the tough competitive world market,’ he said, adding that if the textile industrialists prepare a coordinated work-plan, then all in the textile sector would be benefited.
   He said the entrepreneurs would have to do short, mid-and long-term planning from now to this end, and to obtain latest technology continuously in this regard is also essential.
   ‘The mater of welfare of workers working in this sector is also relevant,’ he told the function.
   The chief adviser hoped that courage, sprit and perseverance of the textile entrepreneurs would keep more fruitful contribution to the effort for elevating Bangladesh to a middle-income-group country by 2021.
   Responding to some of the demands of BTMA, he said those would be considered after examination by the ministries and departments concerned.

The price of New York oil on Wednesday struck a historic peak at 114.50 dollars, winning support as the US currency tumbled to an all-time low against the euro, traders said.
   Later Wednesday, New York’s main oil contract, light sweet crude for delivery in May, stood at 114.20 dollars a barrel, up 41 cents on Tuesday’s close.
   London’s Brent North Sea crude for June struck its own record high of 112.35 dollars on Wednesday. It later stood at 111.96 dollars, up 38 cents.
   ‘It’s very much the dollar that’s behind the increase,’ said MF Global analyst Robert Laughlin.
   In the foreign exchange market, the European single currency rocketed to a record 1.5968 dollars on Wednesday after official data showed annual inflation across the eurozone had hit an all-time peak. Inflation in the 15 nations sharing the euro jumped to an annual rate of 3.6 per cent in March, the highest since the launch of the European single currency in 1999.
   The weak dollar encourages demand for dollar-priced goods like crude which become cheaper for buyers using stronger foreign currencies, traders said.
   ‘Crude oil is advancing now towards the target of 115 dollars,’ said Petromatrix analyst Olivier Jakob.
   This week, oil prices scaled historic heights, breaking through 114 dollars late Tuesday as investment demand was also driven by widespread concerns over tightening world energy supplies, analysts said.
   Traders will focus later Wednesday on a crucial inventories report in key energy consumer the United States.
   Analysts said recent price gains were underpinned by expectations that the inventory report would show further declines US in petrol stockpiles.
   Victor Shum, senior principal at Purvin and Gertz energy consultancy in Singapore, said oil prices would continue to rally.
   ‘The market has generally ignored bearish news such as forecasts of slower demand and focused on the bullish,’ Shum said, suggesting that the US report would likely show a fall in motor fuel inventories.
   Recent production stoppages have also stoked supply worries but the reopening of several facilities in Mexico on Tuesday eased those concerns, analysts said.
   Mexico said Monday it had closed four export terminals due to bad weather while oil giant Shell said shipments through its 1.1 million barrels per day Calpine pipeline in the southern United States had been temporarily disrupted.
   Reports also emerged of minor supply outages in Nigeria.
   ‘The physical oil market appears tight and appears highly sensitive to news of any supply interruption,’ said Fairfax analyst John Mayer.
   ‘Further supply issues are expected in Nigeria and other difficult areas for the industry.’

Clients of Prime Bank will be able to pay utility and mobile phone bills through its automated teller machine soon, said M Shahjahan Bhuiyan, managing director of the bank.
   The ATM users can also use their cards for any buying at the Prime Bank sales point and pay the loan instalment, he said at a meet the press programme on Wednesday.
   The bank is organsing roadshow ‘connecting customer’ to inform the potential customers about the various products of the bank, he added.
   It would hold the roadshow in all its 61 branches this year.
   Under the corporate social responsibility, the bank has donated a large amount for the natural disaster-affected people and also give scholarship to talented but needy student, he said.
   The programme was attended by Nasiruddin Ahmed, additional managing director, RQM Forkan and Syed Mahbubur Rahman, deputy managing directors, Ferdousi Sultana, senior vice-president, and other senior officials of the bank.

The price of tin touched an all-time peak in London on Wednesday as the base metal was buoyed by stretched supplies and the weak US dollar, traders said.
   On the London Metal Exchange, the price of tin for delivery in three months reached 21,400 dollars a tonne — the highest point since 1989 when it was re-introduced on the London market. ‘Prices have strengthened further to a new all-time high,’ said Barclays Capital analysts in a note to clients.
   ‘Given that the overall stock trend of the past few months is firmly lower and that supply woes persist, we expect prices to post further gains in the weeks ahead.’

India’s central bank governor says inflation is unacceptably high and that the bank will make an announcement after its next policy meeting on how it will seek to tame it.
   India’s inflation is at a 40-month high of 7.41 per cent fanning expectations of more monetary tightening that would hit economic growth.
   ‘We anticipated some inflationary pressures but it turned out to be more intense. We have to examine all aspects of the situation, both global and domestic,’ central bank governor YV Reddy told reporters in New York late on Tuesday.
   ‘Definitely the current level of inflation is unacceptable to us,’ said Reddy in remarks aired Wednesday on Indian television.
   ‘We are having a meeting of the policy advisory committee and we expect to make an announcement on April 29,’ he said.
   Some analysts forecast as much as a 50-basis-point interest rate hike when the central bank meets later this month that could slow economic growth further by driving up loan costs and dampening demand.
   Other analysts have forecast the central bank would choose instead to hike the amount banks must hold as cash reserves to curb liquidity in order to try to tame inflation, saying another rate hike might hit the economy too hard.
   Interest rates are already riding at six-year highs.
   Economic growth is seen slowing to as low as seven per cent in this fiscal year to March 2009, from around 8.8 per cent last year.
   The rising Indian inflation comes amid global worry about inflationary pressures from soaring prices for food, fuel and metals.
   Indian inflation has climbed steeply from a trough of 3.1 per cent in October and is far above the central bank’s tolerance level of five per cent.
   The country faces a daunting challenge of trying to keep food and other goods affordable for its population of more than 1.1 billion people, many of whom live in grinding poverty.

The US subprime crisis and a bout of severe winter weather helped cool China’s economy in the first quarter, but soaring food prices kept inflation near a 12-year high, the government said Wednesday.
   The cost of food was up 21 per cent in the first three months from the same period a year ago — a serious concern for the country’s communist rulers, who fear that excessive price rises could set off social unrest.
   The world’s fourth-largest economy grew 10.6 per cent in the first three months of 2008 from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said in a much-anticipated news conference in Beijing.
   This was an easing from 2007, when China’s economy expanded by 11.7 per cent in the first quarter and 11.9 per cent for the year.
   ‘Faced with uncertainties in economic growth, we need to be prepared to prevent both sharp decreases in economic growth and sustained price rises,’ said Li Xiaochao, the bureau’s spokesman.
   Following the announcement, the People’s Bank of China said it would raise the amount of money that commercial banks must keep in reserve by half a per centage point to 16.0 per cent on April 25.
   The reserve requirement is one of the tools China uses to try to rein in the economy.
   Li mentioned the impact of the US subprime crisis as a key cooling factor in the first quarter.
   The crisis has fuelled US recession concerns and coincided with slackening growth in exports from China, whose largest market is the United States.

Amid a deepening world hunger crisis, leading food aid groups are calling for a ‘green revolution’ that would help impoverished regions develop their own agriculture economies rather than relying on US-grown food.
   Josette Sheeran, executive director of the World Food Programme, told more than 700 people gathered in Kansas City for the International Food Aid Conference on Tuesday that the time has come for governments around the world to invest in their farmers.
   Half of hungry African farmers can’t even afford to feed their own families, she said. In Laos, farmers are planting one-third fewer crops because they have no access to credit to buy seed and fertilizer. At the same time, they have a fundamental mistrust in commodity markets. In many countries, remote farmers cannot access markets because of poor roads, she said.
   Her comments came as soaring food and fuel prices have strained food aid budgets of humanitarian aid groups across the globe. The World Food Programme, the world’s largest food aid agency, has seen its costs rise 55 per cent since June, she said. That means that most countries are getting 40 per cent less food for the same contribution, putting more than 100 million people under ‘severe stress’ because of high food prices.
   Besides taking care of immediate needs and stabilizing shortages that have led to violent food riots in Haiti and other countries, Sheeran and other aid leaders are backing proposals to buy more food from local farmers in developing countries, cutting transportation costs while bolstering those nation’s agricultural economies.
   One solution is for humanitarian agencies to contract with poor farmers so they can afford to plant bigger crops. That would guarantee the farmers a market, in effect making the humanitarian agencies the buyers.
   But some of the ideas are controversial in the US, particularly here in the nation’s breadbasket. Currently, more than half of the food the US exports for humanitarian relief is purchased from US growers, and the United States accounts for the majority of the food aid distributed around the globe, feeding one out of every two recipients.
   Rebecca Bratter, director of trade policy for US Wheat Associates, told those attending the conference Monday that the nation’s grain growers do not support the so-called cash option that would buy food aid in other countries rather than the United States. She said that 6 per cent of the nation’s wheat crop traditionally has gone toward food aid purchases.
   ‘Kansas is ground zero for the wheat industry,’ she said.
   But Gaddi Vasquez, US ambassador to UN agencies in Rome, said the hunger crisis has spurred interest in a greater global investment in agriculture. He urged Congress to back the Bush administration’s proposal to use 25 per cent of U.S. food aid dollars for local procurement in other countries. He said innovative programs to buy locally would help small-scale farmers.
   ‘The ultimate objective,’ Vasquez said, ‘is to help countries battling hunger to feed their own people.’
   President Bush on Monday announced plans to draw down an estimated $200 million from a humanitarian trust to address the impact of the high commodity prices on food aid.
   ‘Food aid is the most visible demonstration of the good will of the American people,’ said Mark Keenum, undersecretary for the Farm and Foreign Agricultural Service for the Department of Agriculture.
   Last year, the United States sent 2.5 million tons of food aid valued at $2 billion. Because of high prices the actual tonnage was down 16 per cent from 2006.
   ‘We are spending more but delivering less,’ Keenum said.
   In some countries, such as Sudan, food aid recipients are helping build roads so that remote farmers can bring their crops to market, Sheeran said. In Senegal, the World Food Programme taught women how to iodize salt produced in their country to create an industry.
   ‘Defeating hunger is achievable. It requires no new scientific breakthrough. We know how to do it,’ Sheeran said.
   In Africa, a 10 per cent increase in food prices leads to a 2.3 per cent increase in poverty, said Cris Muyunda, regional coordinator for the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Program of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa.
   But he also saw in those high commodity prices an opportunity to potentially grow the economies in the area, because 32 per cent of the region’s gross national product is agricultural.
   Muyunda cited Malawi as one of the region’s success stories. The country, facing a serious food deficit in 2004-05 growing season issued an international food appeal. By the following year it had a 400,000 metric ton surplus. Two years later it had a 1.2 million metric ton surplus.
   He credited Malawi’s fertiliser subsidy program as well as government intervention to promote innovative programs such as establishing a commodity exchange for the turnaround.

Surging energy and food costs stoked US wholesale prices by much more than expected in March, according to a government report Tuesday that renewed fears about accelerating inflation.
   The Labour Department released its latest inflation snapshot as concern mounts about rocketing global commodity prices which have pushed food prices higher.
   ‘Wholesale costs are rising and the consumer should expect more shocks at the supermarket and the gas station,’ said Joel Naroff, the president of Naroff Economic Advisers.
   The monthly Producer Price Index, which tracks the wholesale cost of goods and food as they leave the factory floor and farm gate, showed prices rising at a much faster clip than in previous months.
   The headline PPI reading jumped 1.1 per cent in March, mostly due to soaring energy and food prices, and was almost double what most economists had anticipated.
   The gain marked the biggest jump in headline PPI since November and occurred as world oil prices continued to strike record peaks.
   Economists said increasing wholesale costs are likely to inflate consumer prices and could pinch household budgets which are already being buffeted by a deep housing market slump, a related credit crunch and rising job cuts.
   If American consumers have to pay more to drive their cars and put food on the dinner table, it could force them to cut back on other spending and further dent economic growth.
   The core PPI reading, which strips out volatile food and energy costs, rose a tame 0.2 per cent last month and was in line with most forecasts.
   On a 12-month basis, headline PPI inflation was up 6.9 per cent while the core rate was 2.7 per cent higher. The United Nations and global policy makers have expressed increased angst about food and energy price spikes in recent weeks.
   Basic foodstuff costs have leapt sharply in recent months, sparking violent protests around the globe, including Haiti, Egypt, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Ethiopia, Madagascar, the Philippines and Indonesia.

Inflation in the 15-nation eurozone jumped to a record 3.6 per cent in March amid soaring oil and food prices, official EU data showed Wednesday in an upward revision likely to alarm the ECB.
   The rate, the highest since the launch of the single European currency in 1999, topped the European Union’s Eurostat data agency’s first estimate of 3.5 per cent.
   Record oil and food prices have fuelled a recent rise in inflation which reached 3.3 per cent in February in the eurozone. In March 2007, inflation stood at 1.9 per cent.
   The March rate pushes eurozone inflation even further out of the European Central Bank’s comfort zone, which it defines as annual consumer price growth of close to but less than 2.0 per cent.
   The new record also further complicates the European Central Bank’s task of keeping inflation under control in the face of an increasingly downbeat outlook for the eurozone economy.
   ‘The final eurozone consumer price inflation will go down like a lead balloon at the ECB and undermines already limited hopes of an interest rate cut in the near term,’ economist Howard Archer said at consultants Global Insight.
   Unlike its counterpart in the United States, the ECB has dismissed calls to cut interest rates in the face of a rapidly deteriorating economic outlook, triggered by turmoil in the US housing and financial markets.
   After the data cemented expectations that an ECB rate cut was not in the cards, the euro hit an all-time peak in London of 1.5942 dollars as investors opted to put money in higher-yielding euros.
   While headline inflation soared to a new high, underlying price growth, which excludes the impact of volatile items like energy and food prices, also crept up to 2.0 per cent from 1.8 per cent in February.
   The price of New York crude oil on Wednesday struck a historic peak at 114.41 dollars per barrel as the US currency tumbled to an all-time low against the euro, traders in London said.
   While oil goes ever higher, record food prices have sparked outbreaks of violence from Haiti to Indonesia as governments struggle to cope with shortages in the face of booming demand in fast growing Asian countries like China and India.
   A breakdown of Eurostat’s data showed transport fuel prices soared 14.5 per cent in March over 12 months while heating oil prices jumped 36.1 per cent. Meanwhile, food rose 6.2 per cent.

A majority of small and medium-sized businesses say the US economy is in worse shape than five years ago and nearly half expect a recession in the next year, according to a survey released on Wednesday.
   Also, more than half of respondents said they have faced difficulty securing credit over the past year as the global credit crunch has taken hold.
   The National Small Business Association’s 2008 NSBA Survey of Small and Mid-Sized Business found that 71 per cent of respondents said the economy is worse than five years ago - up from 43 per cent in 2007.
   Small businesses are often described as the backbone of the US job market. Groups like NSBA have cited growing concerns among members that the US housing crisis could lead to a full-blown recession.
   ‘Our survey shows plain and clear how the economic slowdown is affecting small business,’ NSBA president Todd McCracken said in a statement. ‘This year, a whopping 71 per cent of respondents have a negative outlook on the economy - clearly small business is feeling the pinch.’
   Forty-five per cent of survey participants said they expect the US economy to slide into recession in the coming year and 55 per cent said they had found it harder to obtain credit over the past year.
   The number of respondents seeking bank loans for financing fell to 28 per cent, the lowest figure since the NSBA began running the annual survey in 1993, from 29 per cent a year ago.

Iran’s oil minister on Wednesday questioned the need for OPEC to hike production to cool surging oil prices, snubbing calls for more crude from its Western foes, the United States and Britain.
   Crude hit a record high of $114.08 a barrel on Tuesday.
   ‘Why should OPEC try to lower prices? ... Let America and Britain continue demanding,’ Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari told reporters on the sidelines of a conference in Tehran when asked about the calls from consumers for OPEC to act.
   British prime minister Gordon Brown on Tuesday urged producers to open the taps to counter high prices, echoing a call by the United States.
   Washington and London are embroiled in a row with Iran over its nuclear program, which they believe is aimed at building nuclear weapons despite Tehran’s insistence that its goal is generating electricity.
   Nozari, who heads the oil industry in OPEC’s second biggest producer, described the current price as ‘suitable’ and blamed factors like the weak US dollar for the price surge.
   ‘Oil supply is more than demand in the market but because of other factors including the US dollar losing its value, the price of oil is going up,’ Nozari said.
   The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has also said there is no shortage of supply. As well as a weak dollar, it points to issues like speculative trading and political tensions for price rises.
   Nozari also said he saw no reason for an exceptional meeting by OPEC because the group had no power to act in a market where demand and supply were not the driving forces.
   ‘I don’t think there is a need for an extraordinary meeting to discuss the level of production or the current prices,’ Nozari said.
   OPEC ministers last met for their regular talks in March and are due to meet again on September 9 in Vienna.
   In its bid to isolate Iran, the United States has long imposed sanctions that target the Islamic Republic’s oil industry and other areas. It has also been urging foreign firms to steer clear of the Islamic Republic.
   Nozari said sanctions on Iran were not deterring investors or hampering the country’s oil industry.
   ‘Sanctions and threats are old, dull and ineffective instruments for Iran’s oil industry,’ he said in a speech to the conference.
   ‘Foreign companies are still coming to invest in Iran.’
   Industry experts say many Western firms are increasingly reluctant to invest or expand work in Iran but say Asian firms including from China have been signing up to energy projects.
   The experts say Iran needs foreign investment and accompanying expertise to substantially expand output from the current level, which Iranian officials have put at about 4.2 million barrels per day.
   The UN Security Council has also slapped sanctions on Iran because of the nuclear row. Those UN measures are not aimed at the oil sector but analysts say the standoff is adding to the concerns of Western companies about investing.

Inflation control measures like sucking excess money out of the economy and the robust GDP growth cannot go hand in hand, Indian finance minister P Chidambaram said Wednesday.
   ‘You cannot have both,’ Chidambaram said in the Rajya Sabha during the debate on price rise issue. Finance minister’s remarks came when senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi countered PJ Kurien of Congress saying tightening of money supply would impact growth.
   Kurien was defending the government on the issue of price rise stating the Reserve Bank has revised eight times the Cash Reserve Ratio to suck the liquidity so as to control inflation.
   Chidambaram has recently stated that if GDP growth was to be sacrificed by some margin, the government would not mind it for controlling inflation.

Australia’s economic growth is set to slow considerably in the coming months in the face of a weaker global economy and easing domestic demand, according to a new survey Wednesday.
   The monthly Westpac-Melbourne Institute leading index, which indicates the likely pace of economic activity three to nine months ahead, fell to 3.3 per cent in February, down from 4.1 per cent in January.
   Westpac chief economist Bill Evans said that peaking at 6.5 per cent in November, the index was well below its long-term average of 4.1 per cent, consistent with a slowdown in growth in 2008 and 2009.
   ‘Factors linked to overseas economic conditions have been notably responsible for (the) slowdown,’ he said.

Losses because of the financial crisis sparked by the US subprime mortgage crisis could rise as high as 422 billion dollars, an OECD report said Tuesday.
   That figure was far lower than the 945 billion dollars estimated last week by the International Monetary Fund.
   The OECD also said Tuesday that the crisis had revealed a need for a fundamental overhaul of the financial system, including better regulation, said the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
   The 422-billion-dollar figure included losses of 90 billion dollars in the United States alone, said the OECD’s committee on financial markets.
   ‘Central banks have taken various steps to calm the markets, but concerns remain and the situation is not fully resolved,’ said committee chairman Thomas Wieser, who also heads up the Austrian finance ministry.
   In 2007, the same committee estimated the losses at around 300 billion dollars, ‘the highest, but correct, official estimate at that time,’ said Wieser.

The euro struck all-time peaks against the dollar and pound Wednesday as eurozone inflation spiked to a record high, dampening hopes of an ECB rate cut to help tackle slowing economic growth, analysts said.
   The euro soared as high as 1.5968 dollars and 80.73 pence on news that eurozone inflation had reached 3.6 per cent in March, the highest annual rate since the launch of the European single currency in 1999.
   ‘The eurozone consumer price inflation will go down like a lead balloon at the ECB (European Central Bank) and undermines already limited hopes of an interest rate cut in the near term,’ said Global Insight’s chief European economist Howard Archer.
   The March inflation rate in the 15 nations sharing the euro was revised up from an initial reading of 3.5 per cent, the European Union’s Eurostat data agency said Wednesday. The record rate of 3.6 per cent also exceeded economist forecasts for 3.5 per cent.
   Record oil and food prices have fuelled a recent spike in eurozone inflation, which was 3.3 per cent in February. In March 2007, annual inflation stood at 1.9 per cent.
   The price of New York oil on Wednesday struck a historic peak at 114.50 dollars per barrel, winning support as the US currency tumbled to an all-time low.
   A weak US currency encourages demand for dollar-priced goods such as crude oil, which become cheaper for buyers using stronger foreign currencies.
   Concerns about the economic outlook in the United States and deep interest rate cuts there, to avert a feared recession, have also helped to push the dollar to record lows against the euro.
   ‘We believe that markedly weaker eurozone growth over the coming months, an extended credit crunch and a very strong euro will ultimately lead the ECB to cut interest rates,’ said Archer.
   ‘However, this seems unlikely to happen before September given current elevated eurozone inflation levels and risks,’ added the Global Insight economist.
   Traders were meanwhile expected to look for fresh leads on the outlook in the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book economic report due out on Wednesday.
   US inflation figures March were also being released Wednesday.
   ‘We are in a somewhat grey area as to whether or not the current stance of Fed policy is sufficient to cushion the impact of an extremely sluggish growth environment without excessively fuelling expectations of less stable prices,’ said Thomas Lam, senior treasury economist at United Overseas Bank.
   ‘The strained conditions in credit markets are also problematic for the Fed,’ he said.
   In foreign exchange trading Wednesday following the record highs, the euro changed hands at 1.5938 dollars against 1.5789 late Tuesday, at 161.02 yen, 0.8069 pounds and 1.5906 Swiss francs. The dollar stood at 101.73 yen and 1.0046 Swiss francs.
   The pound was at 1.9708 dollars. On the London Bullion Market, the price of gold rose to 930.50 dollars per ounce from 929.75 dollars late on Tuesday.

Naser Bukhtear joins Agrani Bank as MD
Syed Abu Naser Bukhtear Ahmed joined the Agrani Bank Limited on Tuesday as chief executive officer and managing director. Naser Bukhtear had also been the managing director and CEO of the bank for a three-year term from October 2004 to September 2007, said a press release. Born in 1946, Naser Bukhtear Ahmed obtained his Masters degree in business administration in 1969 from the Institute of Business Administration, University of Dhaka. The MBA programme was implemented in collaboration with Indiana State University, United States of America. He started banking career in Karachi in February 1970 as a Class I officer in the inspection wing of the banking control department of State Bank of Pakistan.
— New Age

Clarification
The report headlined ‘SEC asks 24 DPs to pay CDBL dues by May 29’ published on the page B1 of New Age on April 16 issue includes the name of Anwar Securities Ltd in the list of CDBL fee defaulters. Anwar Securities Ltd on Wednesday, through a letter, claimed that it had paid the CDBL dues by April 10. We mentioned the names of 24 depository participants as per information provided by an SEC official at a briefing session.
— New Age