The country’s foreign exchange reserve has gone higher to $5.80 billion as on the close of last week (December 23) from $5.25 billion on the close of last month, indicating a rise by 10.5 per cent over a period of less than a month.
   The reserve on June 30 this year was $6.15 billion while it was $5.422 billion on December 23 last year, according to Bangladesh Bank data released on Thursday.
   The wage earners’ remittance sent by the non-resident Bangladeshis during November this year amounted to $761.38 million against $617.39 million, marking a rise by 23.32 per cent.
   The remittance sent through the banking channel during the five months of the current fiscal (July to November) totalled to $3.75 billion against $2.81 billion, showing a rise by 33.39 per cent. The current account balance during July to September of the fiscal registered a deficit of $280 million, against a deficit of $59 million. The current account marked a surplus balance of $672 million during the fiscal year 2007-08.
   Rate of inflation on the basis of 12 months average during November this year was 9.37 points from 9.80 in October and 10.00 in March this year, while it was 8.65 in November and 9.11 in December last year. On point-to-point basis, the inflation was 6.12 points in November, 7.26 in October and 10.06 in June this year, while it was 11.21 in November and 11.59 points in December last year.
   The call money rate on December 23 this year was 9.39 per cent against 12.64 per cent during the corresponding period last year, while it was 8.00 per cent in November and 4.78 per cent in June this year.

Transactions of the settlements among member countries of the Asian Clearing Union will now also be made in euro, besides US dollar.
   Board of Directors of the ACU has made a decision in this regard at a meeting that the transactions of trades through Euro among the countries in the region will be effective from January 1 next, Bangladesh Bank has announced recently.
   The central banks of Bangladesh, India, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Bhutan have reached an agreement to settle current transactions among these countries through the ACU mechanism, it said.
   All such payments to the ACU member countries except those covered by loan and credit agreements are accordingly settled through the Asian Clearing Union mechanism in ‘Asian Monetary Units’.
   The AMUs shall be denominated as ‘ACU Dollar’ and ‘ACU Euro’ which shall be equivalent in value to one US dollar and one euro respectively, BB said in its announcement.
   Under the agreement, payments from residents in the territory of one participating country will be made to residents in the territory of another participating country and also payments for current international transactions will be made as per the Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund permitted by the country in which the payer resides.
   Authorised dealers shall maintain ‘Nostro’ accounts in AMUs, that is ACU dollar and ACU euro with their correspondent banks in ACU member countries for the purpose of settlements through the ACU. Similarly accounts in AMUs may be opened by the authorised dealers in their books in the names of their correspondents in ACU member countries.
   Authorised dealers may pay interest on the balance of ‘Nostro’ accounts in AMUs as per mutually agreed terms and conditions with the correspondent(s), the BB announcement said.
   An authorised dealer, who needs to fund its AMU ‘Nostro’ account with a correspondent bank in an ACU member country, will do so through the Bangladesh Bank against surrender of the required amount in AMU, or of equivalent taka at BB’s selling rate.
   The Bangladesh Bank will advise the central bank of the ACU member country concerned to make the amount available to the transferee bank in that country, the BB announcement said.
   After making the payment, the central bank of the recipient ACU member country shall advise the secretary general of the ACU Secretariat to credit its account by debit to Bangladesh Bank’s account.
   For repatriating funds from an AMU ‘Nostro’ account with a correspondent bank in an ACU member country, an authorised dealer shall advise the correspondent bank to route the payment through the central bank of that country, which will advise the Bangladesh Bank to make the amount available to the recipient authorised dealer.
   The Bangladesh Bank on receipt of the advice shall make the fund available to the recipient authorised dealer (either in AMU or in equivalent taka at BB’s buying rate on the authorised dealer’s option).
   Besides, the Bangladesh central bank will advise the secretary general of the ACU Secretariat to credit its account by debit to the account of the central bank of the transferor ACU member country, the BB announcement also said.

Intensive competition in the international market will cause decline in the country’s price of exportable items in near future but overall economic condition would not be affected much by the global financial crisis, the Prime Bank managing director, Mohammad Ehsanul Haque, told New Age.
   ‘The country’s import has also declined in the last three months as the importers tried to avoid risks due to drastic fall in prices of commodities,’ he said in an exclusive interview on the present fall in banking business.
   He, however, mentioned that the situation would return to normal in the long run as rice, pulses and edible oil must be imported to meet local consumption.
   Haque, who joined the Prime Bank Limited in September 2008, had also worked for Trust Bank, BRAC Bank and played a key role in setting up a joint venture bank in Afghanistan.
   Working in India, Vietnam and Afghanistan, Haque has the experience of the best practices in banking and finance.
   ‘It is not possible for private banks to easily cut down lending rates, because they are compelled to collect deposits at an attractive rate in an intensely competitive market,’ the Prime Bank managing director said referring to the conditions prevailing in the market which determine the interest rates.
   Banks are offering loans to customers at 11 to 12 per cent interests while, in general, the rate is 16, Ehsanul Haque pointed out.
   ‘Interest is high for loans with high risks and that is natural,’ he stated mentioning that if the country’s inflation rate reduced, the loan and deposit rate spread would also decrease.
   Focusing on service charge, he said, ‘The private commercial banks are not taking any extra money compared to service charges by the foreign commercial banks.’
   ‘The Prime Bank has secured top position in the country’s private banking sector in term of holding assets and investment which has made the bank’s financial condition sound,’ Haque said informing that the bank’s total asset now stood at Tk 16 thousand crore.
   The Prime Bank’s capital amounts to Tk 713.74 crore and capital adequacy ratio is 10.50 per cent and the bank till October made a profit of Tk 351.70 crore in 2008, which is 24 per cent higher than the previous year.
   Portfolio loan of the bank has increased 36 per cent and stands at Tk 7414 crore.
   Haque feels that the private commercial bank should be bound to set up branches in rural areas although it might be expensive.
   The experienced banker expressed his satisfaction over some recent measures of the central bank like the decision to merge weak commercial banks in order to survive in the competitive international market.
   ‘Our insurance sector should be developed along with the banking sector because the insurance sector’s financial base is weak, Haque added.
   Regarding corporate social responsibility, he informed that the Prime Bank was running a number of projects in different areas including health and education through the Prime Bank Foundation.
   ‘We have provided free medical services to children with heart problems’.
   The bank is planning to set up an international standard hospital in the country so that people need not go abroad for treatment, he informed.
   The country’s leading banker refuted the central bank’s allegation that PCBs were carrying aggressive banking.
   ‘Most of the banks are giving loans through credit card according to the demand of the customers,’ he said.
   Mentioning the preference given by his bank to banking and reaching it to the door step of the clients, the managing director said the Prime Bank was providing home loans, car loans, loans for education and travel, purchase of consumer goods, marriage loan, doctors’ loans and loans against salary.
   Referring to the SME banking, Haque said, ‘The Prime Bank has big plans for SME banking, but it will not be easy to offer large-scale SME service like BRAC Bank to the customers.’
   He said the Prime Bank would try to set up SME service centres in remote areas of the country.

The Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited managing director, M Fariduddin Ahmad, was awarded eighth RAPORT award for his excellence in human resource development, said a news release on Saturday.
   The Transparency International Bangladesh chairman, Professor Muzaffer Ahmed, handed over the award as a chief guest at a function organised by the RAPORT Bangladesh Limited held at a city hotel on Thursday.
   The Bangladesh Bank governor, Salehuddin Ahmed, chaired the function while the North South University vice-chancellor, GA Siddiqui, was special guest.
   The RAPORT Bangladesh chairman and managing director, M Mosharraf Hossain, delivered welcome speech.
   Salehuddin Ahmed, Shykh Seraj, Salahuddin Ahmed, Dr Nazrul Islam, Monzoor Ul Karim, Raquib Uddin Ahmed, Shahina Rahman, Dr Selina Akhtar Jahan and Mun Mun Rahman were also awarded in the function for their contributions in the same field.

International Office Equipment, one of the leading suppliers of electronic cash register machines in Bangladesh, has launched three new models of the ECR, manufactured by the world’s leading producer ACLAS, said a news release on Saturday.
   All the machines are fully complied with the features set by the National Board of Revenue.
   The NBR has made it mandatory for all retail and wholesale shops under all city corporation areas to introduce ECR from January 1, 2009 to increase VAT collection.

Dhaka Regency, a 5-star hotel and resort, celebrated a symbolic birthday of about 500 destitute children of Shishu Polli Plus who do not know their actual dates of birth on Thursday, coinciding with Christmas, the birthday of Jesus Christ, said a news release.
   Head of marketing of Dhaka Regency Neena Ahmed and associate director of Shishu Polli Plus Pat Kerr cut a birthday cake for the members Shishu Polli Plus, a home of over 500 children, mostly orphans, and 150 destitute women, at Sripur in Gazipur.
   The Dhaka Regency general manager, Shahid Hamid, was present.

The Pubali Bank Limited has inaugurated its 365th branch at Halishohor in Chittagong recently, said a news release on Saturday.
   A director of the bank, Fahim Ahmed Faruk Chowdhury, inaugurated the branch. At a function, presided over by the bank managing director, Helal Ahmed Chowdhury, Fahim said the Pubali Bank was committed to providing the best and innovative banking services at a fastest possible time.
   The bank’s chief financial officer, ATM Hasanuzzaman, general manager (Chittagong), Mohammad Firoz Khan, and the general manager and regional head of Chittagong North and Chittagong South, Mosarraf Hossain, were present.

Mobile phone operator Grameenphone Ltd has recently signed an agreement with The Westin Dhaka.
   Under this agreement, Grameenphone ‘xplore’ subscribers will enjoy a 15 per cent discount on Taste Buffet Lunch and a special weekend rate for deluxe rooms. The offer will be valid till 17th January of 2009, a news release said.
   Grameenphone general manager (marketing) Riaz M Zaman, and Westin Dhaka director (sales and marketing) ATM Hafizullah signed the agreement on behalf of their respective sides.
   To avail the discount xplore subscribers will need to have an active connection of more than 180 days.

Christmas retail sales plunged in the United States, a poll showed Friday, as Japan reported record cuts in production and more signs emerged that Spain has entered a recession.
   A leading think tank in London also forecast the British economy would shrink by 2.9 per cent next year in the biggest contraction since the end of World War II as retailers slashed prices in a bid to boost post-Christmas sales.
   US retail sales dropped by nearly eight per cent for the traditional November-December shopping period, making it one of the worst holiday shopping periods in decades, the MasterCard Inc’s SpendingPulse unit said in a report.
   ‘A difficult economic environment combined with unfavourable weather... made 2008 one of the most challenging holiday shopping seasons in decades,’ said Michael McNamara, vice-president of research and analysis for SpendingPulse.
   Among the worst hit were the apparel, and electronics and appliance categories.
   The holiday season is seen as a make-or-break period for many retailers and a key for the struggling US economy, which relies on consumer spending for 70 per cent of activity.
   US share prices shrugged off the gloomy data and ended higher as investors cheered a US Federal Reserve decision Wednesday throwing a lifeline to ailing automaker General Motors’s partly owned finance arm.
   The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 47.07 points (0.56 per cent) to end at 8,515.55 while the tech-rich Nasdaq rose 5.34 points (0.35 per cent) to 1,530.24.
   Meanwhile, investigators looking into the $50 billion Bernard Madoff scandal are continuing to probe the role of family members who worked with him as well as key executives and ‘feeder funds’ linked to his firm, US media reported.
   They are also reportedly probing the role of a small accounting firm that handled the firm’s bookkeeping after Madoff’s arrest for allegedly carrying out a massive fraud scheme that has hurt thousands of investors across the globe.
   Bearish data across the Atlantic Friday also underlined the fragile state of the global economy.
   The Centre for Economics and Business Research in London issued one of the grimmest forecasts yet for the British economy in 2009.
   ‘We’re anticipating 2009 to have GDP (gross domestic product) levels 2.9 per cent lower than 2008. That’ll be the worst one-year fall in GDP since 1946,’ CEBR managing director Mark Pragnell told BBC radio.
   The government has predicted a GDP contraction of up to 1.25 per cent.
   There were also more discouraging reports from European retailers.
   Shopkeepers in Athens said they would defy unions and open on Sunday after disappointing sales in the run-up to Christmas.
   In Britain stores were touting discounts as high as 90 per cent in a bid to attract shoppers in the sales after a November which was down on 2007.
   Also in Europe, Spain’s economy faced a bleak 2009, as more signs emerged that the country has entered a recession.
   ‘It must be made known that we are currently living through the most difficult and serious moments’ of the economic crisis and ‘2009 will be a difficult year,’ Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero warned Friday.
   Zapatero’s bleak assessment mirrors the views of financial experts who say Spain’s economy has entered a recession and warned that GDP could fall 1.5 per cent next year.
   In Japan, the world’s second biggest economy, the government said industrial production in November fell by 8.1 per cent from the previous month — the fastest rate since the government began releasing the statistics in 1953.
   The Japanese yen came under pressure in Asian trade after the discouraging data report. However, Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei index rose 1.63 per cent to a six-week high on bargain-hunting in thin holiday trade.
   Elsewhere in Asia, Thailand’s new prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, told AFP in an interview that the downturn would be tougher than the 1997 Asian financial crisis because of Thailand’s joint political and economic problems.
   World oil prices, meanwhile, rebounded Friday after tumbling to four-year lows before Christmas, as reports emerged that the United Arab Emirates would slash production in line with an OPEC output cutback.
   New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for February delivery, rose to $37.71, up $2.36 from Wednesday’s closing price. Markets were closed for Christmas on Thursday.
   Brent North Sea crude for February delivery, which traded on London’s InterContinental Exchange, was up $1.76 to $38.37.

China plans to offer incentives for car owners to scrap their old models in favour of new ones, in a bid to lift the auto industry as it enters a period of crisis, state media said Saturday.
   The measure is part of a new package being prepared in Beijing aimed at avoiding a US-style collapse of the local auto sector, the Xinhua news agency reported.
   ‘Details of the plan will be announced very soon,’ said an unnamed official with the commerce ministry. He did not give any details.
   The official was speaking shortly after dismal figures were released showing that Chinese auto sales fell 14.6 per cent in November from a year earlier.
   Other measures that China may adopt to bolster auto sales include cuts in the 10-per cent vehicle purchase tax and easier access to car loans, according to Xinhua.
   The health of the auto industry is crucial for the overall well-being of the Chinese economy as economists have argued more than 150 industries depend on it, including the steel and petrochemical sectors.
   ‘The auto industry’s current difficulties are what concern me the most,’ premier Wen Jiabao was quoted as saying in a recent trip to the southwestern city of Chongqing, a car manufacturing key area of China.
   China’s economy is under growing pressure due to the global crisis, with overall growth in the third quarter at nine per cent, the lowest in over five years.
   The World Bank has forecast that growth in the Chinese economy will slow to 7.5 per cent in 2009, a level not seen for 19 years.

French investment bank Natixis, severely hit by the global banking crisis, is to slash jobs at its Tokyo branch from around 100 to 15, a bank spokeswoman said Saturday.
   But she denied that Natixis was planning to close down its Tokyo offices altogether as reported in the French economy daily La Tribune on Saturday.
   ‘We will not close our Toyko operations but we explained on December 18 that we would end our activity in complex markets,’ she told AFP.
   ‘We will remain active on the shares markets in Japan, which requires a local presence.’
   The bank plans to cut its staffing in Tokyo by 85 per cent from around 100 to 15, ‘bearing in mind that some employees will be transferred to other offices.’
   La Tribune quoted various sources as saying Natixis would close its Tokyo offices by May and that Hong Kong would take over responsibility for the group’s activities in Japan.
   Natixis announced earlier this month that it stood to lose up to 450 million euros (605 million dollars) in ‘indirect exposure’
   to the scandal surroun-ding New York invest-ment manager Bernard Madoff.

In a sign of the times in Europe’s biggest economy, poodles, pinschers, terriers and sheep dogs are queuing up for rations at Berlin’s first soup kitchen for pets.
   The venue is a disused night school in the former communist east Berlin where the smell of straw, dry food and wet dog lingers in the air as a Jack Russell in a chequered coat waddles past on its way to the kibbles line for biscuits.
   Pensioners and those on the dole qualify for the free pet food buffet which opened in the district of Treptow in mid-October, allowing those with no disposable income the chance to hold on to their beloved dogs and cats.
   ‘We’ve already signed up nearly 400 people and our stocks are dwindling fast. Today cat owners are just getting a single tin each,’ said Julia Raasch, who heads the capital’s sole animal soup kitchen, run by Tiertafel (Animal Dining Table), a pet welfare association.
   Berlin, where unemployment hovers around 13 per cent, has some 1,00,000 registered dogs, many of them owned by pensioners.
   The soup kitchen also caters to other pets — including cats, rabbits, guinea pigs and budgerigars. Twelve volunteers hand out food and advice, while keeping an eye on the animals’ health.
   Food rations, donated by individuals and food companies alike, will normally cover the animal’s needs for four to five days.
   Tiertafel, launched two years ago, now runs 19 soup kitchens across the country. With the looming prospect of the longest and deepest recession in Germany since World War II, the group is planning on opening 30 more.
   Claudia Hollm, who owns three dogs herself, said she came up with the idea of pet soup kitchens after seeing a television report about a family having to give their dog to an animal rescue centre after the father was made redundant.
   ‘The dog didn’t understand what was going on; all the family was upset, and we just thought — it just can’t be that for the sake of 30 or 40 euros ($42 or $56) they’ve got to turn their pet out,’ she said.
   ‘Everyday we see people who can’t keep their pets anymore because of the cost,’ according to Evamarie Koenig, spokeswoman for Berlin’s central animal rescue centre.
   The facility takes in more than 10,000 animals each year, with one in three handed over by owners who say they can no longer look after them, she added.
   At the Treptow soup kitchen, animal owners — known as ‘customers’ — must initially turn up with the animal in order to register. And they must show proof the pet has been vaccinated.
   They must also prove financial need by showing their welfare papers, unemployment registration or pension card.
   ‘It’s easy for someone to go from middle-income wage earner to someone on Hartz IV,’ Hollm said, referring to the state allocation granted to people on long-term welfare which is worth about 350 euros a month.
   Poverty further isolates people who sometimes must rely on their pet for their sole company, she said.
   ‘Half our customers are old people for whom a cat or dog is their last social link,’ she said.
   It also quickly became obvious that people needed more than just a tin of animal food, Hollm said, pointing to the need to make sure pets stay healthy.
   Amid the holiday season, the association is calling for extra donations so that volunteers can lay out bones, pigs’ ears, toy mice and scratching posts under the Christmas trees set up in each of its soup kitchens.

President Lee Myung-Bak said Saturday South Korea’s economy could shrink in the first half of next year for the first time since the 1997 Asian financial crisis.
   ‘For the whole of 2009, we might achieve positive economic growth, but we might suffer an economic contraction in the first and second quarters,’ Lee was quoted as saying by Yonhap news agency.
   Few countries would register positive economic growth rates in the fourth quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009, he said before receiving government policy briefings at the presidential Blue House.
   ‘The South Korean economy is also expected to hit bottom in the first half,’ he said.
   Lee’s remarks come after the government on December 16 cut its 2009 economic growth forecast by one percentage point to three per cent, citing the deepening global economic crisis.
   The Ministry of Strategy and Finance said in its Outlook and Policy Outline for 2009 that growth next year would be ‘more or less three per cent,’ compared with this year’s expected 3.6 per cent.
   Even the revised rowth target is one percentage point higher than the central Bank of Korea’s prediction of two per cent made earlier this month.

Investors looking to recoup some of the $50 billion they lost in Bernard Madoff’s alleged Ponzi scheme may get a better idea what the New York financial adviser has left when he is forced to reveal his assets to regulators.
   Madoff, 70, must provide a detailed list of all investments, loans, lines of credit, business interests, brokerage accounts and other holdings to the Securities and Exchange Commission by New Year’s Eve, a federal judge ruled. Madoff’s foreign business units were given until Jan 26 to provide a similar accounting.
   The list is to include all assets held for his ‘direct or indirect benefit,’ US district judge Louis Stanton in Manhattan wrote in a Dec 18 order in the SEC lawsuit against Madoff. The list must describe ‘the source, amount, disposition and current location of each of the items listed.’
   A catalogue of Madoff’s assets may reveal targets for angry investors including hedge funds and charities seeking the return of their funds. New York-based Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities LLC began liquidating after his Dec 11 arrest for securities fraud. Madoff, under house arrest in his Manhattan apartment, faces as much as 10 years in prison and a $5 million fine if convicted.
   Several investors filed proposed class-action, or group lawsuits against Madoff and his firm following FBI allegations that he admitted the business was ‘one big lie’.
   A list of Madoff’s assets has yet to be filed, according to electronic federal court records. It’s unclear whether such an accounting will be made available to Madoff investors.
   SEC spokesman John Nester did not return a call or e-mail seeking comment after business hours. SEC lawyer Alexander Vasilescu did not return an e-mail after business hours.
   The NYU lawsuit added to a growing list of alleged victims of Madoff, including Liliane Bettencourt, the world’s wealthiest woman and the daughter of L’Oreal SA founder Eugene Schueller; Spanish billionaire Alicia Koplowitz; US filmmaker Steven Spielberg; Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel; and Yeshiva University.
   New York-based money manager Thierry Magon de La Villehuchet, who may have lost $1.4 billion of client funds invested with Madoff, was found dead in his Manhattan office Dec 23 in what police said was an apparent suicide.
   The New York City Medical Examiner said Dec 24 it had completed an autopsy of de La Villehuchet, a co-founder and chief executive officer of Access International Advisors, and that results would be returned next week.

Mohammed Awamleh sells vegetables on the streets of the Jordanian capital for 12 hours a day to help feed his family.
   But he is only 14 and would much rather be back in school.
   Mohammed is just one of an estimated 33,000 child workers across the small desert kingdom, forced to endure the hard grind of daily working life, often labouring long hours for a paltry wage.
   He left school a year ago, and now earns four dinars ($5.6) a day working at a stall in Sweileh, in northwest Amman.
   ‘I had to work because our financial situation is extremely bad,’ Mohammed, whom customers call ‘the little master,’ told AFP. ‘My brother is 16 and he also sells vegetables. Our older brother is unemployed. He’s 23.’
   In Jordan, a country of around six million people with 70 per cent of them under the age of 30, unemployment is 14.3 per cent, according to official figures. Independent estimates put it much higher at 25 per cent.
   Mohammed said his father was ill and needed ‘non-stop’ treatment.
   ‘Life is really hard and it’s getting harder. Every day I dream of leaving this work, going back to school and living a normal life,’ he said.
   Social development minister Hala Latuf said most children who work were pressured into doing so to improve their families’ income, and estimated the number of child workers at 32,600.
   ‘Society expects them to work and shoulder responsibilities, regardless of what age they are,’ Latuf told AFP, adding that most child workers in Jordan are aged between five and 17.
   ‘These uneducated children are in danger. They don’t know their rights and they face health, injury and exploitation risks,’ she said.
   Mohammed Mahmud is 13 and does not worry about such matters.
   ‘I don’t go to school but I am happy with my work because I help my family,’ he said of his 10-hour day selling children’s comics on the streets of Khalda in western Amman.
   ‘I am proud to work. There’s nothing to be ashamed of because I am not a beggar. I have two younger brothers who need to be fed.’
   The young teenager, who says he makes around 140 dollars a month, was at first reluctant to talk to AFP, thinking that the reporter was a government labour official.
   ‘They (employment officials) make things hard for me by trying to prevent me from working and confiscating my comics,’ complained the youngster, sporting a cowboy hat and a pair of dusty jeans.
   Jordanian law sets the minimum working age at 16, and the minimum age for hazardous jobs at 18, according to the labour ministry. ‘Hazardous’ includes operating machinery, heavy lifting and working in extreme temperatures.
   The ministry estimates the average monthly income of child workers at $113.
   The legal minimum wage in Jordan, which recorded a 14.9-per cent inflation rate in 2008, is $155. The government has promised to increase this to $211 in 2009.
   It is estimated that 63 per cent of child labourers work in agriculture, construction and car repair workshops, with the rest mainly in carpentry, sales, blacksmithing, tailoring and food services.
   ‘The child labour problem has become worrying, and it’s growing,’ University of Jordan sociologist Issa Masarweh said.
   ‘Families push their children to work, and employers are the only winners at the end because they exploit children and make them work for next to nothing.’
   Analyst Mohammed Masri of the Centre for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan agreed with Masarweh and blamed the authorities for not doing enough.
   ‘The government is not dealing seriously with this clear problem. Introducing strict laws and having labour inspectors is not enough,’ he said.
   ‘It needs to find alternatives for those children in order to remove them from the streets, effectively alleviate poverty, reform the educational system and improve their environment.’
   Official figures put around 14 per cent of the country’s population below the poverty line, but unofficial estimates put the number as high as 31 per cent.
   Latuf said Jordan, which endorsed the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention in 2000, was ‘working hard to fight child labour’.
   ‘It’s a complicated problem, not only in Jordan but also worldwide,’ she said.
   Jordan has launched a National Project for Child Labour, partly funded by the US Agency for International Development, to tackle the problem.
   It seeks to rehabilitate thousands of working children by providing them with better education, training, health services and recreational programmes.
   According to UN figures, some 250 million children between the ages of five and 14 work either full time or part time worldwide, with almost half working full time every day, all year round.
   The UN says around 50-60 million are between five and 11 years old and work by definition in hazardous circumstances, considering their age and vulnerability.

Workers at the Bolivian subsidiary of Swiss commodities trader Glencore say the company has sacked about 600 of them because it is facing financial trouble, state-run news agency ABI said on Friday.
   Glencore is the 100-per cent owner of Sinchi Wayra, which produces mainly zinc concentrate but also some lead and employs some 3,500 people in its five mines, according to the company’s website.
   The head of the workers’ union at Sinchi Wayra’s Bolivar mine, Rene Velasquez, told ABI that about 600 people have been laid off.
   ‘Sinchi Wayra is talking about falling mineral prices, but it’s just a pretext to fire 50 per cent of workers, because (in fact) it’s about to go bankrupt,’ said Velasquez.
   It was not clear whether he was referring to 50 per cent of workers at the Bolivar mine or at the company as a whole.
   La Paz daily La Prensa said Sinchi Wayra laid off some 1,300 workers, citing the National Federation of Mining Unions.
   No one was available for comment at Sinchi Wayra’s La Paz office or at the mining ministry on Friday afternoon.
   Sinchi Wayra produces some 240,000 metric tons of zinc concentrate a year, according to Glencore’s website, but prices for
   the metal have plummeted in the past few months as the global economic downturn has eroded demand.
   In October, the Bolivian government said it would buy zinc from thousands of independent miners at a rate above international prices in a bid to keep them at work.
   The leftist president, Evo Morales, nationalised Sinchi Wayra’s Vinto tin smelter in 2007, and Glencore threatened to seek international arbitration.
   High-ranking mining officials recently told Reuters that negotiations with Glencore over compensation for Vinto were going well and that the Bolivian government expected to reach an agreement soon.
   Morales’ government has said in the past that it wants to become a majority shareholder in three Sinchi Wayra mines.
   Mining is the second source of foreign revenue for impoverished Bolivia after natural gas.
   In the first nine months of 2008 Bolivia produced $1.6 billion worth of minerals, roughly 60 per cent more than in the same period last year, according to the mining ministry.

Chinese ambassador to India on Friday said the trade ties between the two countries were increasing rapidly.
   During an informal meeting with the senior officials of PHD Chamber in Chandigarh, Zhang Yan, ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to India, said that India enjoyed a positive balance of trade with China.
   The bilateral trade touched $38.7 billion in 2007, about 33 times the figure in 1995, with an annual growth of 34 per cent, he said, adding India had become the second largest trade partner of China.
   He said, ‘Both India and China should make efforts to minimise the negative effects of the great economic meltdown and take such steps that our economies thrive on the present state of affairs.

India’s foreign exchange reserves swelled to $254.052 billion for the week ended December 19, up by $3.599 billion over the previous week.
   Foreign exchange reserves stood at $250.453 billion in the previous week.
   The foreign currency assets, during the week, went up to $245.308 billion, up $3.583 billion, from $241.725 billion in the week-ago period, the Reserve Bank’s weekly data showed.
   The country’s gold reserves and Special Drawing Rights, during the week, stood unchanged at $7.861 billion and $3 million respectively, the RBI said.
   India’s reserve position in the international monetary fund further swelled by $16 million to $880 billion during the week from $864 million in the previous week, the RBI said.

The gems and jewellery industry in India reeling under the global recession has laid off about 1,00,000 workers, an industry leader said on Friday.
   ‘This is for the first time in four decades that the diamond industry is facing a severe liquidity crunch and has laid off 1,00,000 people recently,’ the Gitanjali Group managing director, Mehul Choksi, said in Surat.
   Over 1.3 million people and their families depend on the $50-billion Indian gems and jewellery industry that has been hit hard with exports nose-diving and imports of rough diamonds remaining suspended for a month till Thursday.

World oil prices rose Friday for the first time this week amid reports the United Arab Emirates will cut production in line with an OPEC output cutback decision.
   In thin post-Christmas trading, New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for February delivery, rose to 37.71 dollars, up 2.36 dollars from Wednesday’s closing price. Markets were closed for Christmas on Thursday.
   The New York contract has been sliding over the past nine trading sessions.
   Brent North Sea crude for February delivery, which traded on London’s InterContinental Exchange, was up 1.76 dollars to 38.37 dollars after settling Wednesday at 36.61 dollars, its lowest since July 2004.
   ‘About the only market moving news over the holiday break is that after the United Arab Emirates joined Saudi Arabia in deepening supply curbs in compliance with OPEC’s recent decision to limit supply,’ said Mike Fitzpatrick of MF Global.
   ‘Even though these are the deepest ever cuts attempted by the group, past attempts have only met with, at best, 80 per cent compliance,’ he said.
   UAE said it would cut output to comply with OPEC’s supply curbs.
   The market rebounded on the production cutback news, said James Williams of WTRG Economics.
   ‘Even if the market believed in the ability of OPEC to implement its own quotas, the market remains concerned’ about the sharp global economic slowdown stemming from financial turmoil, he cautioned.
   Last week, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed to cut output by 2.2 million barrels per day at a meeting in Oran, Algeria.
   The meeting came after the price of crude oil in New York plunged below 34 dollars a barrel as the market digested news of the record cutback even before the announcement.
   Analysts have said that recent US data showing that the world’s biggest economy remains mired in a recession was likely to keep crude oil prices under pressure in the immediate term.
   The price of crude oil has now collapsed by as much as 78 per cent since hitting record highs above 147 dollars per barrel in July, as a sharp global downturn has slashed the world’s demand for energy.

Most of the hide and skin traders in Natore, the country’s second largest hide market, and the northern region have incurred or are incurring huge losses as they have no alternative to selling the rawhides and salted skins of sacrificial animals at throwaway prices to bigger traders.
   The small-scale, seasonal hide traders, who did not gather the latest market info from the big buyers, or arats, are the worst victims as they had no idea about the hide prices set in Dhaka by exporters and big skin merchants.
   The buying prices of rawhides and salted skins were reduced by the bigger merchants in Dhaka by up to 50 per cent. But the local big purchasers bought hides and salted skins at abnormally lower rates than that set in Dhaka.
   Moksed Ali, president of Natore Hide Market Society, said around 10,000 small and seasonal traders had purchased more than 80 lakh rawhides in the 16 northern districts, besides 24 other, as people sacrificed more animals during this Eid due to reasonable cattle prices.
   According to the president of Natore Hide Traders’ Association, the large traders or arats have been purchasing cow skins from rural traders at rates ranging between Tk 50 and Tk 55 per square feet against Tk 110 and Tk 120 of last year and goat skins for Tk 35 to Tk 40 per square feet against Tk 65 to Tk 70 of last year.
   So, although rural seasonal traders bought cowhides from people for Tk 800 to Tk 1,200 they now have to sell the same for Tk 600 to 1,000. Similarly, they are forced to sell the goatskins, procured at rates ranging between Tk 150 and Tk 190, for Tk 100 to Tk 150 to the big traders.
   ‘It perhaps happened due to a lack of demand for the commodity on the global markets amid the ongoing worldwide economic meltdown that also poses a threat to leather export,’ market sources said.