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Dhaka has decided to move ahead for signing bilateral free trade agreements initially with the three major trading partners of the South Asia — India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka — in view of the failure of multilateral trading arrangements to serve Bangladesh’s interests.
   The decision was taken in a meeting with the stakeholders and experts at the commerce ministry with the commerce and education adviser, Hossain Zillur Rahman, in the chair, on Sunday, almost five years after opening such negotiations, meeting sources said.
   A core group comprising public and private sector representatives will be formed with the chief executive officer of the Bangladesh Foreign Trade Institute, M Ali Taslim, as its chief, to assess probable risks and gains of striking the free trade deals with the neighbouring countries.
   ‘The whole exercise will be accomplished under a public-private partnership so that the interest of the country can be served,’ the commerce adviser was quoted to have told the meeting.
   The Bangladesh high commissioners to these three countries will be asked to give their opinions in this regard and contact the host governments to resume negotiations that remain stalled since their beginning in late 2003.
   The latest collapse of the World Trade Organisation talks at the level of mini-ministerial conference in Geneva as well as a slow progress in expanding the regional trade under the SAARC Free Trade Area prompted Bangladesh to go for the option of making the bilateral trading arrangements to exploit the potentials of higher trade with them.
   Demands including duty and quota-free access of products of the least developed countries like Bangladesh to markets of developed countries remain unrealised despite their commitments during the Hong Kong trade ministerial meeting in 2005.
   ‘It will also mean boosting of the regional trade through bilateral arrangements,’ said an official present at the meeting, in reply to the question why Dhaka would now prefer the bilateral free trade agreement.
   The meeting also decided to ink similar deals with two more regional countries namely Nepal and Bhutan in order to justify the objectives of signing free trade agreements with the three major trading nations in the region.
   Bangladesh has been suffering balance of payments deficits with India over the years at a range of more than $2 billion. Dhaka also has trade imbalance with Islamabad and Colombo although the overall trade volume in this regard is much lower than that with India.
   While negotiating with India on the free trade agreement, the issue of transportation and regional connectivity will come up for discussion automatically, former foreign secretary Farooq Sobhan was quoted to have said, adding that Dhaka should have its position clear on this.
   Issues of service sector, non-tariff barriers and sensitive list, especially how they would be dealt with in the FTA deals, came up for discussion at the meeting which was attended by representatives of the trade bodies and research organisations and officials of relevant government agencies.

Bangladesh could double its production of food grains by the next five years if the country’s farmers are brought under the currently available technology and supplied with quality seeds, agriculture experts said.
   They said use of modern technology is now a must for production of additional food grains by using the limited land with a view to facing the food crisis and maintaining their prices at tolerable levels.
   Chief of the Research Division of the Center for Policy Dialogue Uttam Dev said it is possible to enhance food production to a large extent by reaching the presently used medium standard technology in the country to the peasants.
   The total demand of food in the country could be met by introducing across the country the improved varieties of seeds that the local agriculture scientists have developed.
   According to the agriculture ministry sources, at present, among the total quantity of seeds used for production of food grains, only 20 percent are quality seeds. An additional 30 to 50 lakh metric tones of food grains could be produced by enhancing this rate to 40 percent.
   Officials said the demand for main food grain like paddy seeds is three lakh metric tones, of which, only 40 percent quality seeds are being used. Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation supplies 80,000 metric tones of these seeds while the rest by the private businessmen.
   On this, an official of the agriculture ministry said even though the rate of the use of quality seeds is more for the cultivation of paddy than other crops, it is still inadequate. If it is possible to use 60 percent quality seeds for the cultivation of paddy, production will exceed 30 million metric tones.
   He said efforts are on by the government for the production of quality seeds at the local level. He, however, said it is difficult to reach quality seeds throughout the country by the government alone. For this, private sector has to be strengthened.
   According to the experts, the use of fertiliser and irrigation have already reached their optimum levels. It is necessary to use improved quality of seeds and other agriculture technology for the production of food in future, they added.

The government will formulate a national shrimp policy to expedite shrimp farming through developed technology sustainable in the local socioeconomic, cultural, and environment conditions.
   According to a draft of the National Shrimp Policy 2008, it is going to brand shrimp a cent per cent foreign exchange earning good, besides encouraging and promoting public initiatives and private investment in shrimp cultivation, processing and export.
   Talking to New Age last week, a fisheries and livestock ministry official said, ‘Recommendations made by the private sector and export-oriented associations and individuals would be given priority in the proposed shrimp policy.’
   ‘If a planned farming of shrimp is introduced the per-hector production and income would increase by two to three times,’ he said. ‘The proposed policy will come into force within a short while.’
   At present, 2.17 lakh hectors of land and about 1.5 crore people are engaged in shrimp farming in the country, according to official statistics available with the fisheries and livestock ministry.
   The draft shrimp policy has also proposed introducing practical education on shrimp farming in science textbooks at primary and secondary schools while steps will be taken to create opportunities of getting higher education on the subject at local and international level.

The Dhaka Stock Exchange on Sunday fined seven companies for failing to submit their un-audited half-yearly accounts to the bourse within the July 31 deadline.
   The defaulting companies are BD Welding, Beach Hatchery, Bemco, Meghna Shrimp, Saleh Carpet, Sreepur Textile, and Wata Chemicals, said a DSE official.
   He said the bourse slapped each of the seven companies Tk 500 fine for each day of default since August 1 until they come up with the accounts.
   As per the rules, companies have to submit their un- audited half-yearly accounts to the DSE within one month after the first half of their financial year (January –December) ends.
   In 2007, seven companies failed to submit their half-yearly un-audited accounts by the deadline while the number of defaulting companies was nine in 2006, 18 in 2005, and 36 in 2004.
   This year, a total of 146 companies listed with the bourse were required to submit their half-yearly un-audited accounts to the DSE by July 31, the official said. Of them, 139 companies duly turned in their un-audited accounts, but the seven companies named above did not.
   Of the 139 companies who submitted their accounts, 93 reported earning net profits in the reporting period, the DSE official said.

Dhaka stocks plunged on Sunday with the DSE general index dropping to 2689.94 points, lowest since October 4 last year, due to selling pressure from investors worried with the continuous slide in share prices in recent weeks, said market analysts and operators.
   The general index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange lost 71.11 points or 2.58 per cent while its blue chips index, DSE20, shed 64.76 points or 2.56 per cent to close at 2461.47. On October 4 in 2007, the DSE general index was at 2672.16.
   A merchant bank official said investors remained panicky due to a long-standing downtrend in the market. They sold off their holdings fearing further fall in the share prices, he said.
   Analysing the current trend of the stock market, Mahmood Osman Imam, chairman of the Finance Department at Dhaka University, told New Age on Saturday that investors remained shaky due to a downtrend in the market in the recent weeks.
   Dampened with the bear run, investors, especially the retail ones, showed cold shoulders even to positive half-yearly corporate reports of the listed companies, he said.
   The market lost steams in the past seven weeks due to selling pressure from investors. Regulatory moves, including the SEC decision barring closed-end mutual funds from increasing their sizes through issuing bonus or right shares and the DSE’s market cooling measures triggered the sell-offs, said market analysts.
   Concerned with the downtrend, the Securities and Exchange Commission Sunday held a meeting at its conference room with the representatives of the DSE, the Chittagong Stock Exchange and merchant banks and reviewed the current market situation.
   ‘In the meeting, we have discussed the current market situation,’ SEC executive director Farhad Ahmed told at a press briefing after the meeting.
   He said the commission asked the merchant banks to play their due role to help market recoup from the current situation.
   ‘Representatives of the merchant banks assured the commission that the merchant banks would play due role,’ said the SEC official adding that they also informed that merchant banks currently were not facing any fund shortage.
   DSE senior vice-president Saiful Islam and CSE vice-president Al Maruf Khan were also present at the press briefing.
   Of the total 223 issues traded at the DSE on Sunday, 24 advanced, 194 declined and five remained unchanged.
   Turnover at the DSE decreased to Tk 219.61 crore from the Thursday’s Tk 269.62 crore.
   Chittagong Stock Exchange’s selective categories index lost 136.13 points or 2.47 per cent to close at 5381.40 while its blue chips index, CSE30, shed 170.29 points or 2.21 per cent to finish at 7523.02.
   Of the total 132 issues traded at the CSE, 10 posted gains, 120 dropped and two remained unchanged.
   Turnover at the CSE went down to Tk 30.40 crore from the Thursday’s Tk 39.35 crore.

Indonesia’s economy was developed rapidly in recent years although some economists still persist in seeing the factual condition to be doom and gloom.
   ‘This would be a on dangerous ground if such economist build his or her own perspective like that,’ Pande Radja Silalahi, Indonesian economist from Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Xinhua at an exclusive interview recently.
   The economic crisis started to hit Indonesia in the mid of 1997which was very much affected by the drastic change of global economy. Indonesia’s economy was likely to collapse due to the uncertainty and the people’s mistrust in the government.
   ‘But after that, just one or two years later, exactly in 1999,the economy started to accelerate from moderate sluggishness to advance,’ he said.
   Silalahi explained the comparison of Indonesia’s accelerative economy with the United States and Japan, saying that in the past five years, Indonesia’s economic growth reached 6 per cent. The figure was equal to 12 times of the United States’ economic growth and six times of Japan’s. ‘But, do not compare with China which achieved the growth of two digits figure,’ he said.
   Silalahi admitted that the Indonesia’s achievement was still below the target, namely 6.6 per cent which was announced by Indonesian finance minister Sri Mulyani.
   Flash back of Indonesia’s economy during the former late President Soeharto was always related to giant scale of companies or conglomeration supported by the Indonesian government.
   Silalahi said that although ten years passed after Soeharto stepped down due to the people power, the conglomerate still exists.
   The Indonesian government planned a trilogy of national development program which consists of fairness, growth and stability.
   The paradigmatic Indonesia’s economy really had nothing to do with the cronyism, Silalahi said.
   He also did not agree with the judgment of misleading stigma of’Berkeley Mafia’ economic team. Mostly, ‘the graduate of Berkeley America had nothing to do with the concept of Indonesian economic development,’ he said.
   Berkeley Mafia was only a political slogan which was stated by politician. It derived from the name of one of the best universities in the United States, in which many Indonesian economist graduated from.
   Berkeley Mafia was quite popular and widespread spoken several yeas ago among the economist in conjunction with the conception of Indonesia’s economy in the future.
   Indonesian economists should not be blamed to have misled the paradigm of the country’s economy. ‘The fact is, as what I have mentioned, that Indonesia’s economy was growing better in the past ten years after the crisis,’ he noted.

Kuwait’s prime minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammed al-Ahmed al-Sabah arrived Sunday for trade talks in Phnom Penh, where he was expected to discuss Cambodia’s fledgling oil and gas industry.
   The Kuwaiti premier and Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen will on Monday sign agreements on trade and investment, Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong said, while energy cooperation will also top the agenda.
   ‘During the talk, we will raise oil exploration cooperation ... cooperation in the oil and gas sector,’ Hor Namhong told reporters at the airport, where about 600 onlookers waved Kuwaiti flags in light rain.
   Hor Namhong added that he hoped the visit would bring ‘fruitful’ cooperation between Cambodia and oil-rich Kuwait.
   Cambodia expects to begin oil production of its offshore fields in 2011, following the discovery of oil in 2005 by US energy giant Chevron.
   Cambodia was quickly feted as the region’s next potential petro-state, sitting on an estimated hundreds of millions of barrels of crude, and three times as much natural gas in six blocks located off its coast.
   But it remains unclear how much of the black gold can be recovered, or whether any potential revenue would be used to benefit Cambodia, ranked among the world’s most corrupt countries.

Kuwaiti prime minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammed Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah arrived here Sunday for a three-day official visit to discuss gas and oil exploration cooperation with Cambodia, said a senior official.
   Officials from both sides will discuss the possibility of cooperation for oil and gas exploration in the kingdom and sign a trade agreement, a protocol of investment protection and cooperation, said Hor Nam Hong, Cambodian deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation.

A Japan-Bangladesh joint venture is going to install a security printing factory at Rupganj near Dhaka very soon. The business concern, Japan -Bangladesh Group, has already made a primary investment of $1.30 billion and will invest $7.80 billion more by 2010 to complete construction of the factory, the chairman of the group, Salim Prodhan announced at a press conference at the National Press Club on Sunday.
   When the factory comes into operation, 380 people will be employed here and another 50,000 would find jobs by 2013. The factory will print security papers like bank cheques, demand drafts, certificates/marks sheets, pay-orders, share certificates etc. Vice chairman of the group Masamichi Taniguchi, Tadao Komatsu, Rashed Ahmed Chowdhury, and Abdul Quddus, were present among others at the conference, said a press release.

The Royal Bank of Scotland will this week unveil the biggest loss in the history of British banking due to a multi-billion-pound hit from the global credit crunch, The Sunday Times reported.
   RBS, which announces interim earnings on Friday, was predicted to reveal a pre-tax loss of at least 1.0 billion pounds ($1.97b) for the first six months of the year.
   Analysts also warned that Britain’s second largest bank could face a loss of as much as 1.7 billion pounds, the weekly newspaper added without citing its sources.
   Strains from the global squeeze on credit would cost RBS almost 6.0 billion pounds, it added.
   Earlier this year, RBS clinched a record-breaking rights issue totalling 12.0 billion pounds to shore up its finances after huge subprime-related writedowns and the mammoth takeover of Dutch giant ABN Amro.
   Meanwhile, Britain’s biggest bank HSBC will post first-half numbers on Monday, followed by peers Barclays and Standard Chartered.
   Investors are on edge about the cost of write-downs caused by the US subprime or high-risk housing crisis and the subsequent tightening of global lending conditions.
   Last week, British banks Alliance & Leicester, HBOS and Lloyds TSB said that their interim profits plunged dramatically as they felt the chill from the credit crunch.

Japan’s new cabinet on Sunday signalled the government would soon unveil comprehensive financial measures to try and erase fears of a recession in the world’s second-largest economy.
   Prime minister Yasuo Fukuda named a team filled with heavyweights on Friday, vowing to jump-start the country’s fortunes and in a last-ditch effort to revive his waning public support.
   Newly-appointed finance minister Bunmei Ibuki said Japan had taken necessary steps, including last month’s 74.5 billion yen ($692m) package to help fishermen amid soaring fuel costs.
   ‘But I think we have to take additional measures,’ Ibuki told a news programme at Japan’s public broadcaster NHK.
   Trade minister Toshihiro Nikai told the news programme that the government ‘should take a supplementary budget into consideration’ to pay for the planned package.
   ‘The impact of oil prices on local economies is extremely big,’ Nikai said. ‘This is the subject the entire government should handle with all its might.’
   Local media said the cabinet would begin full discussions on Monday, aiming to announce the economic measures as early as September. They will include steps to tackle rising oil prices and support for small businesses as well as people engaged in fishery, forestry and farm industries, the Nikkei business daily said.
   On Saturday, Fukuda vowed to fight price hikes, saying: ‘I will firmly take emergency measures for people who are seriously affected by abnormal oil prices.’
   Public support for Fukuda’s government has risen according to one poll released Sunday, but other surveys indicated that the reshuffle has done little for his popularity.
   The approval rating of the premier’s new cabinet recovered to 41.3 per cent with disapproval rating at 47 per cent, according to a survey conducted by the Yomiuri Shimbun immediately after the ministerial changes.
   The telephone poll covered 1,745 eligible voters of whom 1,006, or 57.7 per cent, gave valid responses, Yomiuri said.
   In a similar survey carried out by the newspaper on July 12-13, the approval rating for Fukuda’s previous cabinet stood at 26.6 per cent and the disapproval rating was 61.3 per cent.
   But the Asahi Shimbun said in its poll that support for Fukuda’s team remained unchanged at 24 per cent from last month, while the disapproval rate declined to 55 per cent from 58 per cent.
   The daily carried out the survey on Friday and Saturday, covering 1,002 eligible voters of whom 58 per cent gave valid responses.
   The popularity of the 72 years old centrist had plunged since he took over last September as voters have been left feeling worse off than a year ago because of rising global oil and food prices.

Australian civil aviation officials on Sunday announced an unprecedented special review of Qantas after three mid-air dramas in the space of two weeks threatened to tarnish its safety record.
   The investigation by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority came as flight attendants asked top company officials for a special meeting and assurances that Qantas planes were safe.
   Qantas prides itself on its extremely good safety record, having never lost a jet plane to an accident, but recent incidents including a mid-air blast that ripped a large hole in the fuselage have dented its image.
   CASA spokesman Peter Gibson said to his knowledge the review was unprecedented. A senior authority official, Mick Quinn, would head the inquiry, which would take about two weeks, Gibson said.
   ‘We want to look at their safety systems to make sure that the systems are operating the way they should,’ Gibson told AFP. ‘All these things are stated in manuals. We want to make sure that what is in the manuals is being done.’
   Gibson said recent audits of Qantas procedures had not shown up any problems, but following the latest incident on Saturday, the authority felt it was ‘prudent’ to make extra checks.
   Qantas said it had no issue with the review and planned to cooperate with it, adding its standards remained high.
   ‘Our operations are first class and are continually subject to the scrutiny of Australian and overseas regulators as well as our own internal audits,’ the airline’s head of engineering, David Cox, said in a statement.
   ‘We have no issue with this latest review and CASA says it has no evidence to suggest that safety standards at Qantas have fallen. We agree and are totally confident these checks will confirm the integrity of our engineering and maintenance operations and our commitment to safety.’
   On Saturday a Qantas Boeing 767 bound for Manila was forced to turn back to Sydney after developing a leak of hydraulic fluid while in the air. It followed two other safety scares.
   On July 25, a Qantas Boeing 747-400 en route to Melbourne from Hong Kong made an emergency landing in Manila after a blast believed to have been caused by an exploding oxygen cylinder ripped a large hole in its fuselage.
   And last Monday, a Qantas 737-800 was forced to return to Adelaide after a landing gear door failed to retract.
   Qantas banks heavily on its image as the world’s safest airline. In the movie ‘Rain Man’, it was famously cited by the autistic central character played by Dustin Hoffman as the only airline he was prepared to travel on.
   However, the latest incidents have left even Qantas’ own staff concerned about its record. Flight attendants made a special request at the weekend to meet senior management to discuss the problems.
   ‘We want some assurances from the company that these are isolated incidents,’ said Steven Reed, president of the Flight Attendants’ Association of Australia. ‘Or are they something we should be concerned about?
   ‘We need to meet with the company at a senior level to have these assurances.’
   A Qantas spokesman said he expected a meeting would be held within the next week.
   In recent years, Qantas has gone through major changes with the launch of a low-cost subsidiary, Jetstar, which is in the process of expanding into Asia. Jetstar’s chief executive Alan Joyce was recently named as the new chief executive of Qantas, to replace Geoff Dixon.
   Engineers have criticised the airline’s increased outsourcing of maintenance to centres overseas, including in Hong Kong, Malaysia and the Philippines.
   One engineering union official told AFP that in one incident involving outsourcing, flight attendants received electric shocks in a galley due to faulty wiring, and on another occasion emergency lighting failed to work properly.
   Wayne Vasta, assistant federal secretary of the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers’ Association, said it would be wrong to blame outsourcing for every problem, but that there had been a ‘change in culture’ within the company over the last five years.
   Demands from management for cost-cutting were the driving factor, he said.
   Qantas engineers in the past had simply been driven by the need to do the best job they possibly could, Vasta said.
   ‘Now it appears we have got to do the best job we can possibly do, within a budget,’ he said, welcoming the CASA’s investigation.

Poverty-stricken Guinea rather than Rio Tinto will be the big loser if the west African country cancels a major iron ore concession, an anti-corruption watchdog said Sunday.
   The Anglo-Australian mining giant said this weekend that Guinea’s President Lansana Conte appeared to have rescinded the Simandou concession, which analysts say could become one of the world’s major sources of iron ore.
   An official with Transparency International, which campaigns to stop officially sanctioned corruption in developing countries, said the big losers would be Guinea’s impoverished people if the project was cancelled.
   ‘They would miss out on all the benefits, and they have got little else to sell to the international community given the collapse of the Doha round last week,’ Greg Thompson told AFP.
   ‘The company will have to go elsewhere. All companies have to secure their long-term future and these are the green fields they are exploiting at the moment.’
   Guinea is one of the world’s poorest countries and is at the heart of a region beset by civil conflict, which has devastated its neighbours Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast over the past two decades.
   The Simandou concession was estimated to contain resources of 2.25 billion tonnes of iron ore and was expected to have an initial production rate of 70 million tonnes per year.
   Simandou, which experts say could one day rival Australia’s Pilbara and Brazil, has been a key factor in the company’s plan to lift iron ore output to 600 million tonnes per year.
   In a statement issued at the weekend, however, Rio Tinto said it received correspondence from President Conte ‘purporting to rescind the Simandou Mining Concession.’
   Rio Tinto said it believed it had conformed with Guinean law and would be considering the situation.
   ‘In conjunction with its partner in the project, International Finance Corporation, Rio Tinto is currently studying the issues raised in the correspondence,’ the company statement said.
   ‘Rio Tinto remains confident that its arrangements are in all respects in conformity with Guinean laws and that it has complied with its obligations.’
   Thompson, of Transparency International, said both Rio Tinto and its would-be buyer, BHP Billiton, had made major efforts in recent years to improve their image with communities affected by their mining.

A powerful US central bank panel, led by Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, is widely expected to keep its key interest rate unchanged in the coming week amid growing economic uncertainty.
   Most economists are betting that the Federal Open Market Committee will keep the federal funds rate firmly anchored at 2.0 per cent amid lackluster economic growth.
   Analysts say the Fed is caught between a rock and a hard place because a cut in rates could trigger fresh inflationary pressures while a rate hike could strangle fragile economic momentum.
   Thus, Bernanke and his fellow central bankers are expected to sit on their hands during a policy meeting set for Tuesday.
   ‘I think the Fed is going to stand on the sidelines holding at 2.0 per cent. We’re getting a very mixed economic picture right now,’ said Scott Anderson, an economist at Wells Fargo.
   Anderson said the world’s biggest economy is throwing off mixed signal which makes it likely that the Fed will not want to make any rash rate calls.
   Official data revealed that the economy grew at a 1.9-per cent pace in the second quarter which marked an improvement from the first three months of the year, but the economy got a timely boost from a giant 168-billion-dollar emergency stimulus.
   America’s unemployment rate meanwhile ticked up to 5.7 per cent during July, according to another government survey. Economists say job losses this year are not as bad as in prior recessions, but the unemployment rate is now at a four-year peak.
   Some analysts believe the 14 trillion dollars US economy has already slumped into a recession — the government revised its tally for 2007 fourth-quarter growth last week to a negative 0.2 per cent — but others say the economic picture is not so dire and that a recession will be avoided.
   If market predictions come true, the Fed will keep rates on hold for a second straight time on Tuesday after slashing rates aggressively by 3.25 percentage points between September and late April.
   The Fed cut rates in a bid to fire up economic vitality which has been threatened by a lingering housing market downturn, a credit squeeze in the banking industry and searing oil prices.
   ‘I think the housing market is really the central element of this crisis,’ Bernanke told Congress last month, signalling that a potential rebound in the housing market could trigger an economic revival.
   The Fed is unlikely to raise rates until the housing market stabilizes, especially as stretched consumers appear to be cutting back on purchasing big-ticket items like cars and large household appliances.
   ‘The Fed will do nothing next week. Fed will keep fed funds at 2.0 per cent, voice its concern about the longer term inflation threats from commodity prices,’ said John Lonski, the chief economist at Moody’s Investor Service.
   Some analysts say the Fed would like to raise rates, in part to ward off the inflationary risks presented by high oil prices, but they say the ailing housing market has boxed policymakers into a corner.
   ‘In the minutes of its June meeting, the FOMC characterized the economic outlook as ‘very uncertain’ and the appropriate path for interest rates as ‘quite unclear.’ Arguably, this foggy policy environment has only worsened in the intervening six weeks,’ analysts at Lehman Brothers said in a research note.
   The central bank is expected to lift rates later this year after November’s presidential election, or by early 2009 on the premise that the housing market will recover, inflationary pressures will cool and wider growth will start to improve.
   But as veteran economists will tell you, no one can read the future, and events might dictate otherwise.

Any new attempt to grasp the grail of a world trade pact will probably have to wait until next year, after elections in the United States and India, despite some calls for more talks now, economists say.
   The head of the WTO, Pascal Lamy, who stressed after the collapse of the talks in Geneva last week that the gains made in nine days must remain on the table, revealed on Friday that talks at technical level were in fact continuing.
   He also said he expected to visit India in a week’s time and perhaps the United States later.
   He was referring to two of the countries at the centre of the emotional breakdown of talks which, participants agreed, had almost joined hands across a deep gulf over special arrangements for protection against a flood of imports.
   And a senior WTO official told AFP: ‘It seems practically impossible to conclude negotiations before the end of the year.
   ‘The idea is to continue to advance to be able to present a package all tied up to the new US administration and to India after the US presidential elections,’ he said.
   Meawnhile, Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said: ‘The talks will not be able to resume until after the American elections.’
   The talks last week struggled late into many nights and through many issues affecting directly or indirectly the peoples of the world, of all classes in all sectors on all continents.
   There was general agreement, but from different angles, that the world’s poorest stand to gain or loss the most.
   The breakdown threw up various views of the future, from analysis that emerging countries have gained new stature to suggestions that the talks should treat agriculture separately from other subjects.
   Stiglitz said a quick resumption of the talks was all the more unlikely because it is ‘difficult to negotiate an accord when unemployment is on the rise and the economy is weakening.’
   India, one of the key players at the talks, is also facing elections at the end of the year, which leaves the government little room for concessions.
   The audacious attempt in Geneva to break apart a seven-year log jam in the so-called Doha Round of trade opening talks, hit deadlock between India and the US over the so-called special safeguard mechanism.
   This enables countries to impose a special tariff on certain agricultural goods in the event of an import surge or price fall.
   Stiglitz was scathing of Washington’s insistence that extra duties should be imposed only if imports surged by 40 per cent.
   ‘Nobody in agriculture has a 40 per cent margin,’ he said. ‘A 40 per cent decline in price would have put most developing countries into bankruptcy. The issue was one of very survival.’
   Stiglitz said there might be a better chance of reaching agreement following the US presidential elections in November.
   ‘I hope that if Obama gets elected, there will be a new commitment to multilateralism,’ Stiglitz said. ‘I hope that Obama will realise how important multilateralism is and will resume the talks on a more reasonable basis.’
   Some countries, however, have not hidden their satisfaction at seeing the Doha round paralysed again. Italy is among a group of nine European countries, including France and Ireland, who believe that Europe had made too many concessions.

The European Central Bank holds an exceptional meeting this month amid signs of persistent market turmoil, but analysts expect interest rates to stay on hold even though the eurozone might be stumbling toward recession.
   The ECB governing council, which does not usually meet in August, raised its main lending rate to 4.25 per cent last month to stem inflation, which is now at a record 4.1 per cent, more than double the bank’s target of just below 2.0 per cent.
   This time around however, ‘the ECB is on hold,’ Citibank analyst Juergen Michels said.
   The bank would ‘probably leave rates unchanged and give a ‘no bias’ statement’ after the decision, he forecast.
   ‘We expect the ECB to be on hold for at least the next 12 months,’ added Bank of America economist Holger Schmieding.
   Eurozone economic conditions have deteriorated sharply in recent months, and manufacturing activity in the 15 member countries fell last month at the fastest pace in more than five years, according to a purchasing managers’ index compiled by data and research group Markit.
   The drop to 47.4 points was the steepest monthly fall since June 2003 and marked the second straight month below the 50 point threshold that indicates a contraction.
   It added ‘to the mounting evidence that the eurozone economic downturn is deepening,’ said Global Insight economist Howard Archer.
   Michels added that ‘the ECB will no longer describe the economic fundamentals as ‘sound’,’ as it has in recent months.
   In a sign of potential financial fragility, the ECB the US Federal Reserve and the Swiss National Bank last week modified operations that provide US dollar funding to European banks.
   Some of those banks are still writing down the value of assets amid chronic money market tension triggered by the collapse of the US market for high risk, or subprime, mortgages a year ago.
   Under the terms of a plan that starts on August 8, the ECB will extend to 84 days a period over which it lends US dollars to commercial banks, almost three times longer than a previous refinancing term of 28 days.
   On the economic front meanwhile, surging oil and food prices have pushed eurozone inflation to its highest level since the bloc was formed in 1999, according to an official estimate.
   Oil prices that hit records close to 150 dollars a barrel in early July have fallen since but have also sparked a slump in eurozone economic confidence, which fell in July at the fastest pace since just after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
   Even employment, which the ECB considers proof that its monetary policy is working, now shows signs of weakening.
   ‘We expect the risk of a much sharper downturn in the labour market to keep the ECB on hold despite the current inflation overshoot,’ Schmieding said.
   UniCredit Markets economist Aurelio Maccario added: ‘We wouldn’t say it very loud, but there may be fair chances that July’s 4.1 per cent may have been the peak in inflation.’
   He also warned that ‘the eurozone economy is heading toward a stagnation phase bound to last at best a few months.’
   Maccario said the ECB would ‘probably state that it is too early to deem as entrenched the recent downward movement in oil prices’ and that ‘money statistics will be a key signal for the rate outlook.’
   The ECB’s bank lending survey is due a day after the rate decision, and Maccario suspected it would show that lending was set to slow rapidly.

China and India are now so integral to the global financial system that the impact of looming changes to antitrust legislation in both countries is sure to be quickly felt across the world.
   China was planning last Friday to implement its inaugural anti-monopoly laws, nearly 15 years after they had been first proposed. India, Asia’s other giant developing economy, is scheduled to implement tough new antitrust laws in the coming months. The changes find echoes elsewhere in the region, with Hong Kong set to introduce its first ever competition laws and established competition regimes in Japan and South Korea becoming ever more active.
   Only last week, Japan’s Fair Trade Commission raided the offices of four companies on suspicion that they had conspired to increase the price of polyethylene sheeting used in insulation materials. But it is the twin developments in China and India, each of which is experiencing record levels of cross-border corporate activity that has set imaginations racing.
   The changes, broadly welcomed in business and political circles, testify to China’s and India’s steady integration into the global financial system and its rules and values. At a stroke, China and India will rival the US and the European Union as key global centres for competition law. ‘It is widely expected that China will soon be the third main jurisdiction for competition law, together with the EU and US,’ says Kirstie Nicholson of law firm Lovells in Shanghai.
   Ignoring the views of Beijing and New Delhi on antitrust issues will soon no longer be possible. Companies will have to ensure they comply with the new anti-monopoly laws or risk stiff penalties. In India’s case, individuals face criminal prosecutions and possible jail sentences. But as implementation looms, there is mounting anxiety in business and legal circles that the new laws could have unintended adverse consequences, including delaying the completion of global mergers and acquisitions.
   Erik Soderlind, the new head of Linklaters’ competition practice in Asia, says: ‘The competition landscape in Asia and beyond will change markedly once the new regimes are in place in China and India. But what impact the new regulations have on business and deal-making will depend a lot on how they are implemented.’
   The new regimes in each country were developed after lengthy consultation and are broadly based on the EU model, spanning the three main pillars of anti-competitive agreements, abuse of dominance and merger control.
   Their adoption has been driven by a mixture of motives. In China, policymakers were keen to demonstrate that the self-styled socialist market economy has laws to protect consumers. India, too, is keen to earn global recognition as a heavyweight economy that is underpinned by rules long adopted in the west.
   But Indian agencies have become noticeably more zealous in championing consumer protection issues under the existing, weaker antitrust regime. They have recently targeted several sectors suspected of cartelisation, namely telecommunications, cement, airlines, tyre-making, explosives and shipping.
   China’s new anti-monopoly law, which took effect on August 1, could be a milestone in the creation of an economy based on law – or it could merely prove a potent new tool of Beijing-style protectionism.

Banglalink recently signed a fiber optic backbone bandwidth leasing agreement with Link3 Technologies Ltd.
   Rashid Khan, chief executive officer of Banglalink, and Raihan Ahmed, chairman of Link3, signed the agreement at a ceremony at Banglalink’s head office in the Dhaka city, said a press release. Officials of the organisations were present in the function.
   Under the agreement, Link3 is leasing Bangla- link’s nationwide underground fiber optics connectivity in all major districts in Bangladesh.

The Green Delta Insurance Company Limited held its half-yearly business conference-2008 at the Seagull Hotel in the Cox’s Bazar city recently.
   Kabir H Chowdhury, chairman of the insurance company, inaugurated the con-
   ference while Nasir A Choudhury, managing director and chief executive officer, of the company presided over the programme, said a press release.
   Golam Mustafa, adviser (tech), ASA Muiz, adviser (human resources and marketing), Sultan Uddin Chowdhury, deputy managing director, of the company attended the conference along with the head of branches across the country.

The Dhaka Bank Limited held its mid year business review meeting’08 at Hotel Sarina in the Dhaka city on Saturday.
   Altaf Hossain Sarker, chairman of the Dhaka Bank Limited, presided over the meeting, said a press release.
   Shahed Noman, managing director, the deputy managing directors, Tanveer Rahim and Mohammad Abu Musa, the former chairmen, Abdul Hai Shorker, The directors, ATM Hayatuzzaman Khan and Mohammad Amirullah, Reshadur Rahman, sponsor shareholder and all the branch, managers were present in the meeting.
   In the review meeting revealed the performance of the bank up to June.

Asian currencies ended the week mostly down against the dollar amid continued jitters about the state of the US economy, dealers said.
   The Yen was at 107.43 to the dollar in Tokyo late Friday, still down from 106.78 to the greenback a week earlier amid lingering concerns about the US economy.
   The Japanese currency hit the week’s low of 108.23 to the dollar on Wednesday.
   After Tokyo’s daytime trading on Friday, the US Labor Department announced that US employers had shed 51,000 non-farm jobs in July, marking a seventh straight month of job cuts as the economy struggles for momentum.
   Despite fresh losses, the monthly government snapshot was not as bad as feared as most economists had predicted 75,000 jobs would be lost during July.
   The job numbers were released ahead of a looming interest rate meeting of the Federal Reserve set for Tuesday. The central bank is widely expected to keep its federal funds rate firmly anchored at 2.0 per cent.
   But as long as the market view remains that the next move in US interest rates will be a hike, the dollar is likely to remain ‘stable to firmer over the next few weeks,’ National Australia Bank analyst Peter Jolly said.
   The greenback lost ground Thursday after US economic growth came in weaker than expected in the second quarter and eurozone inflation scaled record peaks.
   US growth was 1.9 per cent, better-than-revised first-quarter growth of 0.9 per cent but short of market predictions of 2.3 per cent.
   ‘Although the yen remains weighed down by low interest rates at home, it may not simply go down against other major currencies as the US housing loan crisis is spilling over to the eurozone and Oceania,’ the business daily Nikkei said on its Internet edition on Friday.
   The Australian dollar is expected to fall against the greenback next week as an economic slowdown lowers the prospect of further interest rate hikes, dealers said.
   At 5:00 pm Friday, the Australian dollar was trading at 93.65 US cents, down more than two cents from the previous week’s close of 95.82 US cents.
   AMP Capital Investors chief economist Shane Oliver said the currency could fall sharply in coming months.
   ‘The rapid downturn in the Australian economy is making it harder to see parity being reached in the short term,’ he said.
   ‘In fact, with the market now pricing in rate cuts the ride for the Australian dollar could be pretty rough over the next six months with a fall back to around 85 US cents a distinct possibility.
   ‘The long-term trend in the Aussie is likely to remain up though in response to the long-term rising trend in commodity prices, but for now it is starting to look like parity has been postponed.’
   The New Zealand dollar ended local trading Friday at 72.74 US cents, from 74.28 the previous week.
   The dollar has been falling as an easing cycle in interest rates gets under way and and the US dollar is recovering.
   The yuan closed at 6.8435 to the dollar Friday on the exchange-traded market, compared with Thursday’s close of 6.8304, and a closing price of 6.8188 to the dollar last Friday.
   On the over-the-counter market, it ended at 6.8425 to the dollar against 6.8318 the previous day.
   The central bank had set the yuan central parity rate at 6.8423 to the dollar Friday, compared with 6.8388 on Thursday.
   The People’s Bank of China allows a trading band of 0.5 per cent on either side of the midpoint.
   The US-linked Hong Kong dollar finished the week at 7.804 to the greenback compared with 7.799 the week before.
   The rupiah ended the week’s trading at 9,100 to the dollar compared to 9,125 to the dollar a week earlier.
   The Philippines peso fell to 44.225 to the dollar on Friday afternoon from 44.070 on July 25.
   The dollar was at 1.3698 Singapore dollars on Friday from 1.3602 the previous week.
   The won closed at 1,014.60 to the dollar Friday, compared with 1,009.20 won a week earlier.
   The won weakened on rising demand for dollars, as foreign investors were selling local stocks and refineries were settling bills for oil imports.
   The foreign exchange market was cautioned against the possibility that authorities could intervene when the rate was nearing 1,015, dealers said.
   The dealers said they expected the rate to move in a tight range between 1,012 to 1,017 won to the dollar in the week ahead.
   The Taiwan dollar fell 0.78 per cent during the week to close at 30.645 to the US dollar, from 30.407 a week ago.
   The Thai baht fell against the dollar over the past week amid uncertainty over Thailand’s political situation and an easing of concern in the US financial sector early this week.

Oil was unlikely to fall below $100 per barrel as strong demand from emerging economies such as China and India put a floor under prices, a member of Kuwait’s top oil council said in remarks published on Sunday.
   Concerns about the economy of the United States and falling oil demand in developed countries have knocked crude from a July record of $147 a barrel to $125 on Friday.
   ‘I don’t think that prices will return to the record level, nor will they fall below $100 per barrel,’ Khaled Boodai told al-Seyassah newspaper.
   ‘I think that the price ... will stabilise,’ said Boodai, a member of the Gulf Arab state’s Supreme Petroleum Council.
   The official reiterated that Kuwait’s proven oil reserves stood at 100 billion barrels.
   The size of Kuwait’s reserves has been the topic of public debate since industry newsletter Petroleum Intelligence Weekly reported in 2006 that reserves were just 48 billion barrels — about half what was officially stated.
   ‘What some media reported that Kuwait’s oil reserves are less than that is wrong and not based on scientific record, on the contrary, there are new discoveries,’ Boodai said.
   In June, four Kuwaiti parliament members proposed a bill requiring a detailed update on reserves and linking future output to actual reserves.
   If the reserves were lower that officially stated, then the bill could force the OPEC exporter to cut oil output.
   The bill could only be enacted after approval from parliament and the ruler.
   Boodai also reiterated Kuwait aimed to increase output to 4 million bpd by 2020.

CellBazaar introduces voice service
Grameenphone subscribers can listen to information on latest goods traded on its CellBazaar from now on, said a press release. CellBazaar, the market access service of the largest mobile operator, has launched the voice platform to enhance CellBazaar’s activities and user convenience, it the release said. Using CellBazaar, buyers and sellers are able to trade basic goods like rice, potato, television and fridge through their mobile phones. The CellBazaar service was first launched on SMS and then on mobile phone and computer internet. Over a million of people used the CellBazaar’s market so far. ‘Now any GP user can dial 3838 and listen to the latest items on the market in Bengali,’ said the release. User will pay Tk 2.30 per minute including VAT for the service.
— New Age

BB repo auction held
The repo auction of the Bangladesh Bank for commercial banks and financial institutions was held on Sunday. Five bids of 1-day tenor, amounting to total of Tk. 1138.00 crore were received and those bids were accepted. On the other hand, for liquidity support facility for primary dealers, two bids of 1-day tenor, amounting to total of Tk 115.00 crore were accepted. The rate of interest of the accepted al bids was 8.50 per cent per annum.
— New Age

Indonesia wants higher wages for maids in Malaysia
Indonesia will seek higher wages for its nationals working as domestic helpers in Malaysia as the cost of living rises, the country’s ambassador said in an interview published Sunday. Dai Bachtiar told the Star daily higher wages would top a list of demands for Indonesian maids here, including more time off and a proper mechanism to resolve disputes with employers. ‘If costs are rising here due to higher fuel prices and food prices are going up, then our workers too should be entitled to what is deemed fit by the Malaysian government,’ he was quoted as saying. ‘We also want a system in place whereby if an employer accuses workers of any wrongdoing the issue will be handled with fairness.’ Malaysia relies heavily on foreign workers for menial jobs, and the Indonesian embassy says about 300,000 of its national are employed here as maids.
— AFP