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Export sector leaders have said the fiscal measures proposed in the budget for the 2008-09 fiscal year are less likely to support the export growth.
   Proposed duty on capital machinery imports and reduction in cash incentive funds for exporters also disappointed them, they said.
   ‘Our preliminary observation is that the budget proposals are apparently not supportive of export-oriented industries,’ said Anwar Ul Alam Choudhury Parvez, president of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association.
   He chaired a meeting of leaders of different industrial sectors on Tuesday that tried to assess the impacts of budget measures on the industry as a whole and export-oriented sector in particular.
   Leaders of more than 20 export-oriented industries attended the meeting at the BGMEA office.
   Parvez regretted that the cash incentive fund for exports was slashed to Tk 1,050 crore in the proposed budget from Tk 1,270 crore in the revised budget for the current fiscal. ‘It is absurd that the encouragement fund has been cut when the industries need more such supports to increase volume and value of exports.’
   In the name of simplification of customs procedure, a fresh one per cent duty has been proposed on capital machinery imports for export-oriented enterprises that were enjoying zero-duty bond facility, he lamented.
   ‘Considering huge cost of industrial machinery, the duty is high and it is like a procedural punishment imposed on the export sector,’ leader of the country’s largest export earning sector said.
   Parvez also noted that budget proposals did not include any bold steps to remove power and gas supply crises and infrastructural bottlenecks taking their toll on the industries, particularly those in export trade.
   Referring to continuation of tax holiday scheme, the garment industry leader said partial tax break was announced for some new industries, while investors inside export processing zones would continue to enjoy complete tax holiday for 10 years.
   He also pointed out that the proposed budget had nothing about investment in human resource development for export industries which lack skills.
   Among others, Bangladesh Textile Mills Association president Abdul Hai Sarker, former FBCCI vice-president Abul Quashem Haider, terry towel industry leader Anisuzzaman, pharmaceutical industry representative Shafiuzzaman, footwear sector leader Saiful Islam and plastic accessories industry leader Jashim Uddin attended the meeting.

Information and Communi-cation Technology businesspeople on Tuesday said the proposed budget for the fiscal 2008-09 had sought immediate solutions to any problems in the sector without providing specific guidelines for its future.
   The finance adviser, ABM Mirza Azizul Islam, in his budget speech on Monday, said the sectors of software development, data processing and entry and call centres should get a three year tax exemption with effect from July 2008.
   In order to enhance investments in this sector the adviser proposed an allocation of Tk100 crore to the IT Equity and Entrepreneurship Fund.
   He also proposed a reduction in the duty on computers and its peripherals to 3 per cent from the existing rate of 5 per cent, and increase in the rate of depreciation on computers to 30 per cent from 20 per cent.
   However, the industry people demanded a rate of 50 per cent deprecation on computers and a 10 year tax exemption for software development and data processing.
   Mostofa Jabbar, president of the Bangladesh Computer Samity, said the budget was prepared for providing immediate solutions to the sector without having any guideline for its future.
   ‘We did not find any new project in the budget for the development of the ICT sector and there should have been guidelines to revise policies of the EF fund for channelling it through a transparent system’, he said.
   There was no clear policy in the budget speech for the implementation of e-governance to ensure transparency in government activities, he added.
   Habibullah N Karim, president of the Bangladesh association of software and information services, said, ‘The implementation of a hi-tech park was an old demand of ours and we want its implementation, according to the finance adviser’s speech’.
   Referring to the adviser’s statement that the first phase of the infrastructure work on a 231acre-hi-tech park at Kaliakoir near the capital would be completed by the end of the year, Mostofa Jabbar said, ‘Although the government allocates money in the budget for the hi-tech park, there is no substantial progress in its implementation’.
   He suggested formulation of a strategy for the next ten years for the development of the ICT
   sector.

The government has recently launched a donor-funded project worth $84.6 million for improving the national agricultural technology system in Bangladesh.
   The first five-year phase of a three-phase, 15-year programme styled the ‘National Agricultural Technology Project’ is designed to support the government’s strategy to raise agricultural productivity and farm incomes through research and extension.
   It is being jointly funded by the World Bank, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and also the government of Bangladesh. They are contributing $62.6 million, $19.4 million and $2.6 million respectively.
   A World Bank news release on Tuesday said the project was launched at a crucial time for the country when an improved economic performance of the agriculture sector could help attain food security.
   The Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock and their constituent departments and agencies will jointly implement the project which has three components: agricultural research support, agricultural extension support, and development of supply chains.
   The project is expected to focus on revitalising the agricultural technology system, promoting research-extension-farmer-market linkages as well as improving post-harvest management. ‘It will support the implementation of the government’s Agricultural Extension Policy for promoting a decentralized, problem-solving, pluralistic and demand-driven agricultural extension system,’ said the WB news release.
   The government has already, as part of the project, created the Krishi Gobeshona Foundation to ensure sustainable financing of short- to medium-term applied agricultural research.

The chief adviser’s special assistant M Tamim on Tuesday inaugurated a power substation at Kamra-ngirchar in Dhaka to improve electricity distribution system in some areas in the west of the capital city.
   The Dhaka Electric Supply Authority installed the 132/33/11KV substation at Kamrangirchar and 3km transmission line at a cost of Tk 31 crore.
   Tamim said electricity transmission and distribution facilities at Lalbagh, Kamrangirchar, Hajaribagh, Kumartali, Jigatala and Dhanmondhi would improve after the installation of the station.
   He said consumers in such areas were facing more than the usual power outages and low voltage problems because of the constraints in the distribution systems.
   DESA officials said the distribution capacity of the agency would increase by 150MW in the city after the installation of the substation.
   Tamim hoped DESA client service would improve it starts functioning as a company. DESA has been turned into a company, Dh-aka Power Distribution Company, and the new company is likely to take over DESA operation soon.
   The Kamrangirchar substation has been installed under the Grea-ter Dhaka Power Distribution Proj-ect Phase IV. Two more substations will be installed under the project.

The Anti-Corruption Commi-ssion chairman, Hasan Mashhud Chowdhury, returned home Tuesday night after his 22-day foreign trip, ACC director general (admin) Colonel Hanif Iqbal told the news agency.
   Earlier on Monday, Hanif told journalists that Mashhud might cut his trip short due to his mother’s illness.

A Magura court on Tuesday convicted four leaders of the banned Islamist outfit Harkatul Jihad al Islami and sentenced them to 20 years’ imprisonment each in an arms case.
   The convicts are Mokaddes Ali, a close associate of outfit leader Mufti Hannan, Baki Billah, Khalilur Rahman and Rafiqul Islam.
   According to the prosecution, the Rapid Action Battalion picked up the four from the stadium area in the town along with two Chinese rifles, one revolver, one pistol and 86 rounds of bullet on October 31, 2007.
   After examining records and witnesses, special trial tribunal judge Md Rahibul Hasan handed down the verdict.

A leader of the ultra-left Sarbahara party’s ‘Bahini’ faction was killed in a ‘crossfire’ between his followers and the Rapid Action Battalion in Ataikula upazila of Pabna early Tuesday.
   The deceased was Anisur Rahman alias ‘Killer Anis’, 31, of Swargram village.
   Tipped off, a joint team of the RAB-12 and the police conducted a raid on a place adjacent to the Swargram Dakhil Madrassah when Anis and his followers were holding a secret meeting at about 1:30am.
   Sensing the lawmen’s presence, the underground party men opened fire on them prompting the battalion to fire back.
   Caught in the gunfight, Anis died on the spot. The RAB recovered a gun and three rounds of bullets from the spot. Anis, a regional leader of the Sarbahara ‘Bahini’ faction, was accused in a number of cases including nine for murders, the RAB said.

The BNP’s secretary-general, Khandakar Delwar Hossain, on Tuesday accused the government of ignoring the norms and tradition of the judiciary, forcing the court to sit at night by executive orders.
   ‘The executive orders are so powerful that they can force the court to sit at any time and exempt anybody from being present in the court during trial. We are not against the release of Sheikh Hasina or her treatment abroad, but the laws should be applied equally to all the citizens,’ said Delwar at a discussion of the Jatiyatabadi Tanti Dal at the National Press Club in the evening.
   Chaired by the newly appointed president of the organisation, Humayun Islam Khan, the gathering was also addressed, among others, by the party’s vice-chairperson Sarwari Rahman, acting office secretary Rizvi Ahmed and Krishak Dal’s general secretary Shamsuzzaman Dudu.
   ‘They formed medical boards which suggested that Hasina should be sent abroad. Similar boards also said the condition of Tarique Rahman and Arafat Rahman was also critical and they need treatment abroad,’ he said.
   ‘It was the BNP who first demanded Hasina’s release. If the mechanism of executive power can be applied for Hasina, why should Tarique and Arafat be deprived?’ he asked.
   ‘Our leader Khaleda Zia said she would not leave the country at all and she trusts the local physicians. We demand proper treatment for her but we do not want to see any fresh drama as part of the blueprint that was drawn to create grounds for the January 11 events,’ he said.
   ‘Newer dramas are being staged as part of that blueprint and the move for dialogues was one of them. BNP is a people-oriented party and is ready to join the dialogue in order to break the impasse. But we are not ready to sign any package deal or accept everything [government] they say,’ he said.
   ‘No dialogue or election can be held in Bangladesh without the presence of Khaleda Zia,’ he added.
   Delwar also slammed the government for its move to amend the Constitution. ‘Only an elected Parliament has the right to discuss anything regarding the Constitution, and to decide to keep the Constitution as it is or amend it if necessary. This move by the government is totally illegal and absolutely beyond its jurisdiction,’ he stated angrily.
   Recalling Ziaur Rahman’s contributions to Bangladesh, Delwar said, ‘It was Ziaur Rahman who transformed the polity from a single-party autocracy to a multi-party democracy. Many people try to implicate him in the tragic happenings of August 15, 1975, but he was in no way involved with them. It was the Awami League’s politicians who killed their leader. People now know whose blessings the killers of Sheikh Mujib had at home and abroad.’

Workers of a garment factory in the Baron area under Savar upazila in Dhaka on Tuesday went on a rampage demanding their salaries and other outstanding bills.
   They damaged two microbuses and blocked the Baipail–Abdullahpur Road for half an hour to press home their demand.
   Local people said around 3,000 workers of Hollywood Fashions Ltd turned violent at about 4:00pm demanding their salaries for the first week of June and other outstanding bills.
   The unruly workers also damaged machinery, furniture, doors and windowpanes of the factory, and locked into a chase and counter chase with the police.
   The police, Rapid Action Battalion and army personnel later brought the situation under control. At about 6:00pm, the workers blocked the Baipail–Abdullahpur Road and withdrew the barricade as it started raining.
   Meanwhile, 2,500 workers of Shed Fashion Tuesday went on work abstention to realise their various demands, including salary hike, increased transport fare and better lunch.
   The workers later agreed to get back to work today, as the factory authorities assured them of meeting their demands.