Bangladeshi apparel exporters are seriously considering best possible utilisation of marketing opportunities in Japan as they understand at last that the Asia’s largest economy could be a lucrative new destination.
   Industry sources said many Japanese importers were also considering Bangladesh as a very reliable sourcing destination as the recent debacle in garment manufacturing industries in China made them shaky.
   ‘We are doing specific studies on the characteristics of and opportunities in Japanese market, especially examining how Bangladeshi knitwear manufacturers can occupy a significant market share in Japan,’ Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters’ Association president Fazlul Hoque told New Age.
   Fazlul Hoque said besides being serious about the Japanese market, his association was eying the knitwear markets in Turkey and Poland.
   ‘We need to diversify markets and anchor in other potential destinations,’ said the president of the association representing knitwear exporters, three-fourth of whose shipments are destined for European countries.
   Industry insiders said local exporters might have felt the necessity of fresh drives in Japan after a leading Japanese fast fashion retailer, Uniclo, had recently set up a joint-venture in Bangladesh to manufacture and source made-in-Bangladesh garments.
   The Japanese market of knitted wears is worth tens of billions of dollars and as the young people there like knitted fashion wears so the market is trendy, an exporter pointed out.
   After the USA and some central European countries, Japan is a major destination for apparel exports. But, utilising the geographical advantages, Chinese exporters have grabbed that market.
   One leading knitwear exporter felt that after facing the manufacturing debacle recently, especially the sharp rise in Chinese cost of production, the Japanese importers were anxious and searching for alternative sources for the long run.
   ‘It’s high time for Bangladeshi apparel exporters to work to bag a slice of the Japanese market-pie.’
   According to the Japan External Trade Organisation, Bangladesh’s exports to Japan amounted to around $167 million in the first 10 months of the current year, posting a 13 per cent year-on-year growth.
   In 2007, Bangladesh’s exports to Japan amounted to $175 million with a year-on-year growth of 9 per cent only.
   At present, apparel export accounts for a minor portion of Bangladesh’s export earnings from Japan. Finished leather, shoes and frozen shrimps are the country’s top export items to Japan.
   In 2007-08 fiscal ended in June saw Bangladesh garment exports amounting to $10,700 million, with only $28 million coming from Japan.
   Japan-Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Abdul Hoque foresees increased volume of made-in-Bangladesh garments in Japanese market in the coming days.
   Acknowledging the Japanese retailer giant Uniclo’s step to source from Bangladesh, Abdul Hoque said, ‘As a global retailer, Uniclo’s sourcing from Bangladesh may change the scenario of Japan’s import from Bangladesh.’
   He, however, pointed out that, as the Japanese market was very much quality conscious and trendy so the Bangladeshi exporters needed to put much efforts and professionalism in their marketing missions to Japan.
   ‘Bangladeshi apparel exporters should make specific studies on the Japanese market and they need to carry out marketing activities professionally and in collaboration with Japanese importers.’
   With Japanese yen getting stronger, it is high time for Bangladeshi apparel exporters to start exploring that market, Abdul Hoque pointed out. ‘Export to Japan is much more lucrative now.’

A total of 15 companies have got listed with the country’s bourses, floating initial public offerings and offloading shares on the bourses through direct listing regulations, in 2008 that ends tomorrow.
   Five of the 15 companies – Jamuna Oil Company, Meghna Petroleum, Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company, ACI Formulations, and Shinepukur Ceramics – made their way into the capital market through direct listing regulations, while the rest got listed through issuing IPOs worth around Tk 275.4 crore.
   Of these 10 companies, Fidelity Assets and Securities Company raised Tk 14.06 crore, Continental Insurance Tk 9 crore, Delta-Brac Housing Tk 5 crore, ICB AMCL Second NRB Mutual Fund Tk 80 crore, Grameen Two Mutual Fund Tk 15.34 crore, First Security Bank Tk 115 crore, Summit Alliance Port Tk 10 crore, Takaful Islami Insurance Tk 9 crore, Standard Insurance Tk 9 crore, and Northern General Insurance Company Tk 9 crore.
   Jamuna Oil, Meghna Petroleum and Titas Gas, three state-owned enterprises, were listed through offloading their shares worth Tk 13.50 crore, Tk 12 crore and 214.12 crore respectively, while the private-sector companies ACI Formulations and Shinepukur Ceramics offloaded shares worth Tk 8.99 crore and Tk 35.01 crore respectively.
   The shares of these five companies, however, were sold at prices a number of times their face values.
   In 2007, a total of 14 companies raised Tk 492.39 crore by floating IPOs.
   ‘We have not received our expected response from the private-sector companies on issuing IPOs in 2008, when the stock market continued with its phenomenal growth starting from the first month of the previous year,’ said a senior official of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
   SEC chairman Faruq Ahmad Siddiqi, however, hoped that the capital market would register further growth in the next couple of years, with telecom sector and good companies from other sectors offloading shares on the market. The introduction of book-building method of IPO pricing will contribute to the expected growth of the capital market, he said.
   The SEC early this month approved the draft rules of book-building method for IPO pricing.
   When the rules are finalised and come into effect, they are expected to result in a radical shake-up of the capital market.
   Book-building is a mechanism where, during the period for which the book for the offer is open, the bids are collected from investors at various prices within the price band specified by the issuer.
   Stock market experts said entrepreneurs of large private-sector companies thought under the existing fixed-price method they would not have received fair deals if they had floated IPOs. Introduction of book-building process of IPO pricing will encourage the private-sector companies to enter the country’s capital market.

The textile and jute ministry will take administrative and legal measures to realise $25 million jute export proceeds from the Sudan within six months, official sources said.
   The decision came from an inter-ministerial meeting last week, as the Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation is suffering from a cash crunch.
   The BJMC in 1992 exported $25 million worth of jute to the Sudanese government
   but has not received
   the price in the last 26 years, a jute ministry official said.
   The Agriculture Bank of Sudan is supposed to pay the sum to the BJMC. As it has not, the state-run corporation is facing severe liquidity crisis, the official said.
   Expecting to get the money from Sudan, the BJMC also borrowed Tk 40 crore from Janata Bank in 1997, thinking it would be able to pay back the loan when the Agriculture Bank of Sudan pays up. But, it is yet to happen and by this time the loan amount has inflated
   to Tk 147.86 crore with interest.
   The textile and jute ministry informed the inter-ministerial meeting that the Sudanese bank had recently agreed to pay the principle amount of the export money but not the interest accumulated on it, the Sudan being an Islamic state.
   ‘The textile and jute ministry will take steps to realise export money in consultation with the foreign and law ministries,’ said a top official of the jute ministry.
   ‘The BJMC will get some financial breathing space if the export money comes,’ said BJMC finance director Haris Uddin Chowdhury.
   Meanwhile, export of raw jute declined 16.46 per cent and jute goods 7.45 per cent in July-October from that in the corresponding period of last fiscal year.
   In the four months of this fiscal year, the country exported jute goods worth $101.81 million and raw jute worth $43.45 million.

The military-run Myanmar has signed a deal with South Korean and Indian companies to pipe natural gas from the energy-rich nation’s offshore fields to China, state media reported Monday.
   The Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise inked the deal last Wednesday with South Korean companies Daewoo and Korea Gas Corporation and Indian energy firms ONGC Videsh and GAIL to supply gas to the China National United Oil Corporation.
   ‘The agreement was signed to export natural gas to China from Shwe natural gas project at Block A-1 and A-3 at Rakhine coastal region through pipelines,’ the New Light of Myanmar newspaper said.
   The paper gave no other details of the project, but Beijing media reported last month that China was planning to start construction on a gas pipeline to Myanmar in early 2009.
   The two blocks are off the coast of western Rakhine state near the border with Bangladesh, where impoverished Myanmar has discovered huge reserves of natural gas which are helping prop up the military junta.
   Myanmar, which has been ruled by the military since 1962, is under economic sanctions by the United States and Europe because of its human rights record and long-running detention of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
   But the impact of the sanctions has been weakened as neighbours such as China, India and Thailand spend billions of dollars for a share of Myanmar’s oil and gas reserves to solve energy problems at home.
   China is a key ally of Myanmar, and is also the top buyer of its abundant natural resources including gems, jade, pearls, timber and gas.
   Figures from 2006 showed that 13 foreign oil companies are working on 33 projects in the country, while gas exports earned the regime $2.7 billion last year, a Myanmar newspaper has said.
   The country’s economy, however, has been crippled by decades of mismanagement, and Myanmar is one of the poorest nations in the world with per capita GDP well below that of nearby Laos and Bangladesh.

The Advisers Committee on Public Purchase on Sunday approved a proposal for import of 15 lakh tonnes of refined petroleum from Malaysia at an approximate cost of Tk 4,897 crore.
   Under the proposal of the energy ministry, the state-owned Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation will make the bulk import of petroleum from Petco, a sister concern of the Malaysian state-owned Petronus Corporation, under a state-to-state deal.
   Of the total fuels, 12 lakh tonnes are diesel while 1.5 lakh tonnes of jet fuel and another amount of 1.5 lakh tonnes of kerosene.
   The premium was fixed at $5.98 for per-barrel diesel and $6.60 for each barrel of jet fuel and kerosene.
   The total petroleum fuels will be imported for a period of March 2009-December 2009.
   The committee, known as Cabinet Purchase Committee under political governments, also approved a proposal of the food ministry for the import of 1 lakh tonnes of wheat to meet the domestic food demand.
   The finance adviser, AB Mirza Azizul Islam, presided over the interim government’s last Purchase Committee meeting.

Oil prices rose sharply on Monday, touching nearly $42 in London, amid rising unrest in the Middle East and evidence that OPEC members have begun complying with agreed output cuts, traders said.
   Brent North Sea crude for delivery in February soared $3.53 to $41.90 a barrel in early trading on London’s InterContinental Exchange.
   New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for February delivery, jumped $3.50 to $41.21.

A second stimulus package up for discussion in the new year to boost Germany’s ailing economy will not include slashing taxes or shopping vouchers, the finance minister was quoted as saying Monday.
   ‘Those publicly proposing 35 billion euros ($50 billion) in consumer vouchers are lacking in balance. Those proposing 25 billion euros worth of tax cuts have as little sense of proportion as those pushing for a 50-billion-euro investment programme,’ the finance minister, Peer Steinbrueck, told the Passauer Neue Presse regional daily.
   Angela Merkel’s government unveiled a package of measures in October to boost growth but with Germany entering what economists are predicting will be its worst post-war slowdown the chancellor has been under pressure from all sides to do more.
   The heads of Germany’s ruling coalition – Merkel’s CDU conservatives and the centre-left SPD, of which Steinbrueck is a member – are due to discuss additional measures next Monday.
   The coalition would decide by mid-January about the details in its second stimulus plan, government spokesman Thomas Steg told a press conference on Monday.
   ‘You can assume that the decision will be made in January, you can assume it will be made by mid-January,’ Steg said.
   Steinbrueck stressed that no concrete decisions would be taken next Monday and said it was too early to speculate on the size of the package, while calling for the talks to be marked by prudence.
   Media reports have said the second series of measures could be worth from 25 to 40 billion euros.
   Steinbrueck told Passauer Neue Presse the second package would include steps to help the auto industry and remove hurdles to ensure that infrastructure projects were not held up by red tape.
   He also said that cutting people’s health insurance contributions would be much more effective in putting cash in consumers’ pockets than reducing taxes because half of all households already pay no income tax.
   Germany’s government has angrily rejected calls from economists, politicians from all parties and even from other countries that it is not doing enough to boost its economy, the world’s third biggest, which is already in recession.
   Steinbrueck went as far as to dub the British government’s use of heavy borrowing to boost its economy as ‘breathtaking’ and ‘crass Keynesianism’, referring to 20th century British economist John Maynard Keynes who advocated governments should spend their way out of recession.
   ‘No decisions will be taken on January 5. There are currently different talks going on. I am trying to ensure that we do not totally lose sight of the basic tenets of budget consolidation and fairness towards (future) generations, and that we act with the necessary prudence,’ Steinbrueck said.

A top British business leaders’ network said Monday it was calling for the national minimum wage not to be increased in 2009 due to the faltering state of the economy.
   The British Chambers of Commerce has written to the Low Pay Commission public body – which advises the government on the rate – saying it should remain at current levels until economic conditions had significantly improved.
   The minimum wage stands at 5.73 pounds (8.42 dollars, 5.95 euros) an hour for adults, 4.77 pounds for 18- to 21-year-olds and 3.53 pounds for 16- and 17-year-olds. An increase in 2009 in line with the 2008 rise introduced in October would cost businesses 300 million pounds, said the BCC, the national body for a powerful and influential network of accredited chambers of commerce.
   As Britain slides into recession, many hard-pressed firms would be unable to afford such a rise, the BCC said.
   ‘We’re not opposed to the minimum wage going up when employment is high and the economy is doing well,’ said BCC director general David Frost.
   ‘But when jobs are being lost daily and a recession is in full swing, it makes no sense to increase it.
   ‘Most businesses are prioritising survival at the moment. A rise in minimum wage would not help firms hold onto staff and would simply add to unemployment.’
   The BCC is forecasting that three million people will be out of work by 2010.
   The number of people claiming jobless benefits in Britain leapt in November by the biggest monthly amount for more than 17 years, official data showed, soaring by 75,700 from October to 1.07 million people.

Sri Lanka’s central bank on Monday placed a troubled private bank in state custody, saying the move was aimed at preventing a collapse of the country’s entire financial sector.
   The Central Bank of Sri Lanka exercised its regulatory powers to place the Seylan Bank in state custody and appointed state-owned Bank of Ceylon as the new manager of the private bank, a statement said.
   ‘The difficulties of Seylan Bank Plc presented a potential danger to the stability of the (country’s) financial system,’ the Central Bank of Sri Lanka said in a statement.
   Officials said there was a run on Seylan bank deposits on Monday before the central bank stepped in.
   A senior central bank source said the government would initially manage the Seylan bank for a period of six months and then decide if it should return the operation to its owners, led by businessman Lalith Kotalawala.
   Kotalawela and his Ceylinco group control 23 per cent of Seylan whose affiliate, the Golden Key Credit Card Company failed to honour its debts running into millions of dollars last week.
   In a notice over the weekend, Kotelawala said the Ceylinco group would sell off its controlling stake in the Seylan bank to settle the debts of the failed Golden Key Credit Card company.
   With 160 billion rupees ($1.4 billion) in assets, Seylan controlled six per cent of Sri Lanka’s total banking assets, according to Fitch Rating agency.
   Just before the central bank move, the Seylan bank’s chief executive Ajith Pasqual said they were looking for a foreign or local buyer to take up the controlling stake.
   The collapse of the Golden Key Company and the run on Seylan deposits was the first sign of international financial woes hitting the tiny economy of Sri Lanka, which is also embroiled in a separatist war with Tamil rebels.

The Chinese parent of ailing South Korean automaker Ssangyong Motor wants to axe some 2,000 jobs – almost a third of the employees – in return for financial support, a media report said Monday.
   The redundancies are a condition for Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp to provide a $200 million credit line, JoongAng Ilbo newspaper said, quoting an unidentified former Ssangyong executive.
   Ssangyong is teetering on the edge of a financial crisis and failed to pay workers on time this month, but has not so far received funds from its parent.
   The main South Korean creditor, Korea Development Bank, on Friday refused to provide new loans unless the Chinese firm helps first.
   ‘Ssangyong has now only 10 to 20 billion won (7.8 to 15.6 million dollars) in operating funds and will be unable to sustain itself beyond January next year without Shanghai’s help,’ the executive told JoongAng.
   ‘Shanghai demanded early this month that the Ssangyong management lay off 2,000 assembly line workers in corporate restructuring in order to secure a 200 million dollar bailout fund from Chinese banks.’
   Ssangyong has a total of 7,100 employees, of whom 5,100 are assembly line workers.
   JoongAng did not identify the former executive, whom it said was dismissed from the automaker early this month.
   A Ssangyong spokesman told AFP: ‘I’m unaware of the proposed layoffs. The company has yet to work out any corporate restructuring plan.’
   The Chinese owner is known to have demanded wage cuts and redundancies at Ssangyong, a move strongly opposed by unions, but no details have been given. It has reportedly threatened to abandon the automaker in January unless its demands are met.
   For the third quarter Ssangyong, acquired by Shanghai Automotive in 2004, posted a net loss of 28.2 billion won – the fourth consecutive quarterly loss.
   The company says it expects a net loss of more than 100 billion won this year due to a slump in demand.
   Ssangyong halted production for two weeks from December 17.

Global stock prices inched ahead Monday in quiet year-end trade, with investors scooping up bargains as they brace for what will likely be a volatile 2009.
   Shares in oil, gas and minerals were among the top gainers after global crude and copper prices ticked up. But volumes were thin, with many investors waiting on the sidelines until January.
   Major Asian stock markets closed flat, with Tokyo, Seoul and Shanghai all overcoming early losses to finish barely changed. European stock markets were firmer in early trade.
   Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei index ended up a marginal 0.09 per cent as shares in insurance firms soared on reports of a three-way merger to form the country’s largest non-life insurer.
   But dealers said there was no firm direction. The Tokyo market closes with a half-day session on Tuesday and reopens on January 5.
   ‘Since we only have one more morning session tomorrow before the market closes for this year, investors would not want to take positions before the long holidays,’ said Daisuke Uno of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp.
   Asian markets have tumbled this year as the global credit crisis saps up liquidity and drags down the world economy. The International Monetary Fund’s top economist warned last week of a second Great Depression.
   Some dealers doubted that global stock markets would have a clear direction until US president-elect Barack Obama takes office in January 20, with dealers hoping he can reinvigorate the ailing US economy.
   In the more immediate future, dealers were waiting for Tuesday’s release in the United States of consumer confidence data for December.
   ‘I wouldn’t be surprised to see our market rise if US consumer confidence data aren’t worse than expected,’ Macquarie Private Wealth senior private client adviser Marcus Droga told Dow Jones Newswires in Sydney.
   Sydney ended up 1.1 per cent, while Hong Kong added one per cent and Singapore was up 1.13 per cent in late trade. But Taipei closed down 0.20 per cent, while Bangkok and Mumbai were both down at midday.
   Seoul closed marginally lower following an early sell-off after the central bank said South Korea’s capital investment is expected to drop for the second consecutive year.
   ‘While most investors remained on the sidelines after they closed their books for the year, local pension funds actively picked up stocks in the later session,’ said So Jang-ho, an analyst at Samsung Securities.
   Shanghai also ended just slightly lower as steelmakers dragged down the market on concerns over weak corporate performances due to the global crisis.
   ‘Investors’ sentiment remains weak as they are still worrying about corporate earnings in the fourth quarter,’ said Wang Junqing, an analyst at Guosen Securities.

The euro could surpass the dollar in global importance within the next five years, most Europeans feel, according to a survey Monday by the Financial Times and Harris polling agency a few days ahead of the single currency’s 10th birthday.
   The poll also showed that eurozone residents supported further expansion but were pessimistic about the economy and felt the European Central Bank had not done enough to control inflation in the eurozone area.
   The eurozone will count 16 members and roughly 330 million residents when Slovakia joins on Thursday.
   Since its launch on January 1, 1999, the euro’s position as a reserve foreign currency has grown from 18 per cent to 27 per cent, and the value of euros in circulation has surpassed that of dollars.
   The FT/Harris poll did not give an overall figure but a breakdown of the results showed that around 70 per cent of Spaniards and two-thirds of the French people agreed ‘strongly’ or ‘somewhat’ with the statement that the euro could overtake the dollar in global importance.
   In Germany, the figure was 58 per cent and in Italy 62 per cent.
   Even around 48 per cent of US residents polled agreed with the statement.
   Europeans were downbeat with respect to the economic outlook, however, and a majority said the ECB’s performance in fighting inflation was ‘bad’ or ‘terrible’.
   That was the case even though the central bank has generally managed to keep inflation from climbing much above its target of just below two per cent.
   Some prices rose sharply with the formal introduction of euro notes and coins seven years ago, three years after the currency’s launch as a virtual currency used in accounting and financial transactions.
   Finally, a quarter of those polled felt the recession would last a year or less while the British expect at least two years of economic contraction and one-third of Germans said Europe’s biggest economy would not return to growth ‘in the foreseeable future’.

As Thai women in tartan schoolgirl outfits writhe listlessly around poles on the bar top, Dawan Blades scribbles in a black ledger and shakes her head. The numbers simply do not add up.
   This year’s tourist season on Thailand’s biggest island of Phuket looks set to be the worst since Blades took over Sharky’s Bar six years ago.
   Located at the entrance of a huge bar complex in Patong Beach, Phuket’s busiest tourist town, Sharky’s should be standing room only. Instead, barely half the bar stools are occupied.
   ‘Business is down, darling. Dead, no good,’ Blades drawls.
   Phuket, along with the rest of Thailand, is reeling from the aftermath of political protests in Bangkok that brought the capital’s two main airports to a standstill for eight days from late November to early December.
   Images of hundreds of thousands of stranded travellers desperate to leave the country were beamed around the world, prompting droves of tourists to cancel holidays planned for December and January.
   The airport siege could not have come at a worse time. Peak season in Thailand runs from November to February and industry officials believe it will be at least four months before business recovers.
   Sunbathers still dot Phuket’s sandy white beaches but in far fewer numbers than is usual at this time of year.
   Nevertheless, it’s a dream come true for some holidaymakers more used to Phuket’s mass tourism.
   ‘I was here three months ago in the low season and it was much busier back then,’ said Chenae King from western Australia, who has been travelling for five months.
   ‘It’s good for us because you don’t have to battle with anyone else. They’re struggling to sell so you get everything for really low prices,’ she said.
   Many hotels have halved their room rates to drum up business but occupancy has still dropped to 50 per cent from an average of 80 per cent, according to the Thai Hotel Association.
   On the streets of Patong, entertainers work hard to draw customers into bars and nightclubs.
   Flourishing red feather boas and flaunting plunging necklines, transvestites from Tangmo cabaret are spending a lot of time these days pounding the footpaths and posing posed for photos with passers-by.
   It does not seem to make much difference.
   ‘Business has really gone downhill,’ said the cabaret’s owner, Chanok Kaewseenuan, who is better known as Tangmo. ‘It’s much worse than after the tsunami.’
   The tsunami, which killed 5,400 people in Thailand in December 2004 and a total of 220,000 people across Asia, has become the benchmark for the drop in business.
   Tourism bounced back relatively quickly after the natural disaster. This time, it may take longer as the global economic downturn hits purse strings and slows international travel.
   Officials believe they can weather the latest storm, however long.
   ‘Our experience with the tsunami has shown us how to cope, how to survive,’ said Sethaphan Buddhani, director of the Thailand Tourism Authority in Phuket.
   ‘We help each other, not only the government but also the private sector and banks. We help each other in terms of loans for example. We will extend the hotels’ loans by at least three years,’ Buddhani added.
   The government is mulling a $625-million rescue package for the tourism industry amid warnings from the Thai Hotels Association that 100,000 hotel workers could lose their jobs.
   Layoffs are a last resort in Phuket though. Both Chanok and Blades pledged to keep their staff on, even if it means dipping into savings.
   ‘Before business was very good. There were many customers, work was non-stop,’ said Blades, who employs 16 people at Sharky’s Bar and many more at her massage parlour, beauty salon and restaurant.
   ‘I’m not going to cut salaries now. I’ll use money from before to pay staff and wait for better times.’
   At Tangmo, the show must go on so the girls sashay onto the stage for the first of three nightly performances in front of a near-empty audience.

White House Clothing BD (Pvt) Limited, an Indian company, will set up a knit garments manufacturing industry in the Karnaphuli Export Processing Zone, said a news release.
   The 100 per cent foreign-owned company will invest $5.862 million in setting up their plant and will produce knit garments. The company will also create employment opportunity for 1,203 Bangladeshi nationals along with 24 foreign nationals.
   An agreement to this effect was signed between the Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority and the Indian company at BEPZA Complex in Dhaka recently.
   BEPZA member (engineering) Md Farhad Uddin, and White House Clothing head (project) D Suresh Kumar signed the agreement on behalf of their respective sides. The BEPZA executive chairman, Brigadier General Jamil Ahmed Khan, was present on the occasion.

Annual sales conference of Aristopharma was held at the Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Centre in Dhaka on Saturday, said a news release on Sunday.
   The company chairman and managing director, MA Hassan, inaugurated the conference.
   In his address MA Hassan said Aristopharma would continue to play a leading role in the country’s pharmaceutical sector.
   Company directors Md Mahboob Hassan (marketing and commercial), Md Mahmud Hassan (production) and Md Sahid Hassan (finance and administration) also spoke

Jute Spinners Ltd of Khulna on Sunday declared 20 per cent dividend for its shareholders for the year 2007-2008.
   The announcement came at the company’s 29th annual general meeting held at the CIRDAP auditorium in Dhaka Sunday morning, said a news release.

US president-elect Barack Obama’s economic stimulus plan may cost between 675 billion and 775 billion dollars and will favour long-term infrastructure and job creation projects, top Obama aides said.
   With the United States facing gloomy forecasts of up to 10 per cent unemployment and a deepening recession in 2009 – likely ‘the bleakest economic outlook since World War II’ – Lawrence Summers said creating three million new jobs was a ‘key pillar’ of Obama’s plan.
   Obama senior adviser David Axelrod told CBS television Sunday that 675 billion and 775 billion were ‘not fixed’ numbers.
   ‘In this crisis, doing too little poses a greater threat than doing too much,’ Summers, tapped to head the White House National Economic Council, wrote in an editorial in The Washington Post.
   ‘Any sound economic strategy in the current context must be directed at both creating the jobs that Americans need and doing the work that our economy requires.’
   Summers, who served as Treasury secretary under former president Bill Clinton, signalled that Obama would adopt a different approach than President George W Bush.
   ‘Some argue that instead of attempting to both create jobs and invest in our long-run growth, we should focus exclusively on short-term policies that generate consumer spending,’ he said.
   ‘But that approach led to some of the challenges we face today – and it is that approach that we must reject if we are going to strengthen our middle class and our economy over the long run.’
   Obama’s incoming administration and congressional leaders are ‘getting awful close’ to a general agreement on the huge economic stimulus package the Obama team hopes to implement soon after the January 20 inauguration, vice president-elect Joseph Biden said last week.
   ‘I don’t think Americans can wait,’ Axelrod said.
   ‘People are suffering, our economy is sliding and we need to act. So our message to Congress is to work on it with all deliberate speed.’
   Axelrod said the economic downturn adds urgency to repealing Bush’s tax cuts for wealthier Americans and will not prevent the future Obama administration from enacting its planned middle-class tax cuts.
   Bush’s tax cuts are ‘something that we plainly can’t afford moving forward. And whether it expires or whether we repeal it a little bit early we’ll determine later, but it’s going to go. It has to go,’ he told NBC.
   He argued that eliminating the Bush tax cuts did not mean Obama would raise taxes.
   Obama’s economic stimulus plan ‘will amount to a net tax cut for the American people,’ he said. ‘We feel it’s important that middle-class people get some relief now.’
   In terms of job creation, ‘we’re talking about investing in alternative energy projects that will help us achieve energy independence. We’re talking about rebuilding the nation’s classrooms to bring them into the 21st century, and labs and libraries so our kids can compete,’ Axelrod added.
   Around 80 per cent of the three million new jobs Obama aims to create will be ‘in the private sector, including emerging sectors such as environmental technology,’ Summers said, calling it a ‘bold goal’.
   ‘Failure to create enough jobs in the short term would put the prospect of recovery at risk,’ Summers added.
   ‘Failure to start undertaking necessary long-term investments would endanger the foundation of our recovery and, ultimately, our children’s prosperity.’
   The Obama stimulus plan was originally intended to safeguard 2.5 million jobs in the next couple of years. But its scope was expanded to three million jobs earlier this month as the US economy sank deeper into recession.
   Biden reaffirmed that Obama wanted the new Democratic-led Congress to make the economic package its top priority when it convenes in early January, calling it ‘the most urgent order of business for the new administration.’

Key events that hit financial markets, companies and consumers in the year now ending:
   
   January
   - The US Federal Reserve, or central bank, makes the first of several interest rate cuts.
   - Crude oil prices go over 100 dollars per barrel for the first time ever. Gold also rockets.
   - Bank of America buys Countrywide, the US’s biggest mortgage lender, which is struggling in a falling market.
   - The French bank Societe Generale says that a trader, Jerome Kerviel, lost 4.9 billion euros ($7.15b) through unauthorised trades.
   February
   - Germany faces a huge tax evasion scandal after a prosecutor turns up evidence that hundreds of people were hiding assets in Liechtenstein.
   - The British government nationalises Northern Rock, a major bank involved in risky property loans.
   March
   - Gold tops $1,000 an ounce.
   - Bear Stearns becomes the first big US investment bank to get into trouble due to exposure to subprime, or risky, property loans. It is sold off in a deal engineered by the central bank.
   April
   - The giant Swiss bank UBS announces massive losses due to risky investments.
   - Rising world food prices cause riots in Egypt and several sub-Saharan African countries.
   May
   - High fuel prices cause protests by fisherman and truckers in several European countries.
   June
   - The US unemployment rate rises by a half percentage point to 5.5 per cent, the biggest leap in two decades.
   July
   - Oil prices hit an all-time peak at just over $147 a barrel.
   - World trade talks collapse in Geneva.
   August
   - A five-day war between Russia and Georgia brings new concerns for oil prices and the West’s energy security.
   September
   - The US administration takes over Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, giant institutions which underpin most of the country’s property loans.
   - Lehman Brothers bank files for bankruptcy.
   - On September 15 the US stock market plunges by more than 4.4 per cent. Markets also crash around the world.
   - The US government steps in to save American International Group, one of the world’s biggest insurers. In Britain,
   Lloyds TSB bank swallows up HBOS, a competitor threatened with bankruptcy.
   - Fortis bank is bailed out by Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, while France and Belgium step in to save the Dexia bank.
   - The US administration draws up a $700-billion operation to mop up banks’ ‘toxic’ mortgage debt.
   October
   - World stock markets crash again on October 10.
   - British prime minister, Gordon Brown, proposes concerted action to save the world’s banking system.
   - Iceland nationalises its biggest banks amid a massive credit crunch due to borrowing abroad.
   November
   - Democrat Barack Obama wins the US presidential election. The United States reports another huge jump in unemployment to 6.5 per cent.
   - The Chinese government announces a huge economic stimulus plan, which briefly lifts world stock markets.
   - The International Monetary Fund warns of a global recession for 2009.
   December
   - Details emerge of a worldwide financial pyramid scheme run by a top US financier, Bernard Madoff. Losses are expected to reach $50 billion.
   - European Union leaders draw up a concerted 200-billion euro ($260-billion) plan to hold off a recession.
   - After much hesitation, US President George W Bush announces help for his country’s two biggest auto companies.
   - Oil prices fall below $40 a barrel.
   - The Russian ruble drops to a three-year low against the dollar.

Some 600,000 British workers will lose their jobs in 2009 and a million could go before the worst is over, according to a study Monday giving the latest gloomy forecast on a deepening recession.
   Around a million jobs may be lost in all before the economy starts to recover and the next three months will be the worst for job losses since 1991, warned the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
   ‘This time last year, in the face of some scepticism, the CIPD warned that 2008 would be the UK’s worst year for jobs in a decade,’ said John Philpott, chief economist for the CIPD which represents managers and personnel staff.
   ‘It was but in retrospect it will be seen as merely the slow motion prelude to what will be the worst year for jobs in almost two decades.’
   A series of high profile companies have gone bust in recent weeks, including century-old toys-to-clothes retailer Woolworths, whose more than 800 shops began closing before Christmas and will all be shut down by next week.
   Many more companies are facing difficulties and the period between Christmas and Easter could see a surge of fresh bankruptcies.
   ‘Our current expectation ... is that the number of redundancies will jump sharply in the early months of 2009, once employers take stock of the economic outlook,’ said Philpott.
   The institute’s annual barometer forecast ‘is that the UK economy will shed at least 600,000 jobs in 2009,’ he said.
   ‘Overall the 18-month period from the start of the recession in mid-2008 until the end of 2009 will witness the loss of around three quarters of a million jobs,’ equal to the rise in jobs in the last three years, he added.
   ‘Assuming the economy bottoms out in the second half of 2009, job losses are likely to continue into 2010, in all probability taking the final toll of lost jobs to around one million.’

Taiwan’s central bank will not cut its key interest rates to zero to boost the island’s flagging economy, bank governor Perng Fai-nan said Monday.
   ‘We can’t solely depend on the monetary policy,’ Perng told lawmakers when asked if Taiwan would cut its rates to zero.
   ‘We need fiscal measures as well,’ he added, without elaborating.
   The bank earlier this month announced its largest rate reduction in 26 years, leading the market to believe it would join the world’s other central banks in a series of further cuts amid the global economic meltdown.
   Since mid-December the central bank has cut the discount rate to 2.00 per cent from 2.75 per cent, the unsecured loans rate to 4.25 per cent from 5.00 per cent and the secured loans rate to 2.375 per cent from 3.125 per cent.
   The 75 basis point cut was deeper than the market had expected and analysts said the move showed the local economy was in a worse state than expected.
   Taiwan’s gross domestic product fell 1.02 per cent in the third quarter, marking the first such decline in seven years due to falling spending and investment.

The latest growth estimate by France’s state statistics institute confirmed Monday that the country has defied predictions and narrowly avoided falling into recession.
   The economy grew 0.1 per cent in the third quarter, thereby avoiding recession after a contraction of 0.3 per cent in the second quarter, said a second estimate by INSEE that confirmed initial figures given in November.
   INSEE had initially predicted a fall of 0.1 per cent in gross domestic product in the third quarter. A recession is defined as two quarters of negative growth.
   Nevertheless, the institute predicted on December 19 in its official economic forecast that France will fall into recession next year for the first time since 1993 and faces a steep rise in unemployment.
   After the 0.1 per cent growth in the third quarter of this year, it estimated that the French economy will shrink by 0.8 per cent in this quarter and will contract again by 0.4 per cent in the first quarter of 2009.
   The agency hopes for a slow recovery after that but GDP could still decline by 0.1 per cent in the second quarter – marking a nine month long contraction – and 2009 as a whole could still see negative growth.
   The government has, however, stuck with its forecast of a slender expansion in 2009 of 0.2 to 0.5 per cent.

China on Monday launched an anti-dumping probe into screws and bolts made in the European Union, following an EU decision this month to impose high import duties on Chinese fastener exports.
   The investigation, which covers carbon steel screws, bolts and washers, could last for as long as 18 months, said a statement posted on the commerce ministry’s website Monday.
   The move came after EU countries voted on December 3 to slap import duties of up to 87 per cent on Chinese-made screws and bolts for five years.
   China is the largest producer of screws, bolts and washers in the world and the European Union is the biggest market, taking 575 million euros ($820m) worth of such products in 2007, according to Chinese industry figures.
   Meanwhile, China’s annual fastener imports from the European Union, which are mainly used on high-end products, have reached $180 million in recent years.
   EU trade experts have complained that an increase of Chinese fastener exports has hurt European manufacturers, the official Xinhua news agency said Monday.
   But Chinese exporters said that the profitability of European makers actually rose 110 per cent between 2003 and 2007, according to Xinhua.

Mobile phone operator AKTEL has launched a WAP-based service called ‘news on demand.’
   This service is now available in ALKTEL Spice, where customers are able to access ‘AKTEL ETV News’ and download the news from the latest or archived menu, said a news release.
   The subscribers will be charged Tk 10 plus VAT for each download.
   The AKTEL managing director and chief executive officer, Jefri Ahmad Tambi, and the Software Shop Limited managing director, Sayeeful Islam, signed a deal to the effect at AKTEL office at Mohakhali in Dhaka recently.

The Mutual Trust Bank Ltd has opened its 36th branch at Tongi in Gazipur recently, a news release said on Sunday.
   The bank’s founder chairman, Syed Manzur Elahi, inaugurated the branch while its director Abdur Rouf was present as special guest.
   In his address, Manzur Elahi stressed the need for doing business sensibly in the wake of global economic recession and also assured the audience of providing all banking support.
   The MTB managing director, Kazi Md Shafiqur Rahman, highlighted the importance of opening a branch at Tongi, an important commercial hub.

Prime Bank prepaid card has been launched through a signing ceremony between the Prime Bank Limited and the Dhaka Club recently.
   PBL head of retail Adil Raihan and Dhaka Club executive committee member Nazim Shaikat Choudhury inked the deal, a news release said on Sunday.
   Initially, only Dhaka Club members will be able to avail the facilities. Its members could buy cards of Tk 1 thousand, Tk 3 thousand and Tk 5 thousand denominations and could pay their bills. The prepaid service is first of its kind by a Bangladeshi bank, the release said.