Bangladesh Bank, the central bank, has sought fiscal and economic data from the finance ministry for preparing a sovereign credit rating report which should help attract foreign direct investment as well as boost short-term borrowings for the country’s private and public sectors.
   The report will help two foreign credit rating companies appointed by BB to weigh the risks of Bangladesh economy and the fundamentals of the country’s industrial and banking sectors that should help entice foreign investment into the country, BB sources said.
    ‘The report is expected to project Bangladesh in a positive manner for attracting more foreign direct investment in the country,’ said one of the officials who requested anonymity.
   BB has requested the finance ministry to provide data including the non-deposit type of liquid assets and debt servicing performance of the government, he said.
    ‘Development partners and many foreign investors consider Bangladesh a risky country… a sound and sovereign credit rating report will enhance the country’s image and help local financial organisations to tap low-cost borrowings from foreign sources,’ said the official.
   Bangladesh Bank has formed a contact team which would keep in touch with the two foreign credit rating companies—Standard and Poor’s and Moody’s Singapore Pte Ltd—and supply them with economic statistics from time to time.
   BB has sought statistics on government assets and fiscal history from 1998 to 2008 year as well as planned data for 2009 and projection for 2010.
   The fiscal data sought for the purpose include breakdown of revenues, grants and expenditure, transfers of assets of state-owned enterprises and state-owned banks and debt servicing and detailed data on government subsides. Bangladesh Bank will pay around Tk 97.3 lakh in the first year and Tk 83.3 lakh in the next year as fees to the two foreign credit rating companies.
   Sovereign credit rating will definitely reduce dependence on the London inter-bank offer rate and help obtain low-cost funds from foreign sources, former finance adviser AB Mirza Azizul Islam told New Age.
   The central bank has been working since 2007 to prepare a credit rating report for the country to help mobilise funds from overseas sources and foreign investment agencies.

Britain weighed new curbs on banks and a key forum outlined rules to prevent a replay of the global financial crisis on Thursday as pressure mounted for more regulation ahead of a G20 summit.
   The head of Britain’s Financial Services Authority said he would support moves to raise capital requirements for banks and impose taxes on financial transactions to cut the bloated banking sector down to size.
    ‘If you want to stop excessive pay in a swollen financial sector you have to reduce the size of that sector or apply special taxes,’ Adair Turner, chairman of the FSA, told current affairs magazine Prospect in an interview.
    ‘Higher capital requirements against trading activities will be our most powerful tool to eliminate excessive activity and profits.
    ‘And if increased capital requirements are insufficient I am happy to consider taxes on financial transactions,’ Turner added.
   Excessive risk-taking by banks and traders, resulting in massive bonuses, has been blamed for helping spark the financial crisis that spiralled after the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers in September 2008.
   There have since been multi-billion dollar government bailouts of world banks and many economists now emphasise that prospects for any stable economic recovery are closely linked to a pick-up for the banking sector.
   Public anger about bank bonuses and the luxury lifestyle associated with them has also risen as the fallout from the economic crisis has become ever more painful, with unemployment rising sharply in many economies.
   French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have now thrown their weight behind proposals to impose stricter rules on performance-linked pay for banks and have urged G20 partners to follow suit.
   Britain’s FSA earlier this month outlined new rules on bonuses for banking executives, unveiling a new code of practice that begins in 2010.
   EU Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso on Thursday also said there should be limits on bonuses and ‘reinforced ethics’ in the economy, adding that the the European Union’s executive arm would work with the G20 to achieve this.
   Bonuses are set to take centre stage at a meeting of finance ministers from the Group of 20 leading global economies in London next week, before a G20 summit of world leaders in September in the US city of Pittsburgh.
   The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, an influential forum based in Switzerland, meanwhile released plans on Thursday for new bank accounting standards ahead of the summit in a bid to prevent another crisis.
   The plans are meant to ensure that banks are better prepared to deal with financial risk and the ups and downs of economic cycles, said the forum, made up of representatives from top industrialised and emerging economies.
   In Britain, Turner criticised some activities of London’s financial sector as ‘socially useless’ and questioned whether it had grown too large.
   He also said pay levels in the sector could be due to ‘over-simplistic financial deregulation’, describing this as the ‘really fundamental question.’

A few years ago the accountant was the book-keeper, called on for an opinion only when the figures did not add up.
   Now they are strategic leaders in companies and public sector bodies. In most modern businesses around the world, the finance team is the only group who possess a knowledge of an enterprise in depth and in breadth to advise on strategic development. And in many companies, the group finance director is also the group strategy director.
   In the business world with vast skill shortages, the finance director, as much as the HR director, will help to come up with appropriate people strategies.
   The role of the financial professional has changed rapidly – in both big and small businesses. In an environment of greater globalisation, accountability, transparency, teamwork and effectiveness, two key criteria emerged. The financial professional of the future needs to possess both detailed technical accounting skills and a broad strategic vision. One alone is not enough.
   And this is just what the ACCA qualification enables people to become – financial experts who can transfer their skills to the public or private sectors, in large or small business, anywhere around the world.
   It is almost a year since ACCA [the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants] opened its office in Bangladesh.
   According to ACCA, more people are choosing a career in accountancy that makes Bangladesh one of the ACCA’s fastest-growing markets.
   ‘ACCA is a global organisation with a global qualification. The ACCA professional qualification provides a common standard throughout the world. We have 362,000 students and 131,500 members in 170 countries worldwide,’ Mohua Rashid, country manager of ACCA Bangladesh said.
   She said studying to be an accountant with ACCA is a success story in Bangladesh. Taken as part of the Indian sub-continent, the country, together with Pakistan and India has seen a 26.5 per cent total increase in member and student numbers from 2007, so more people in the sub-continent are choosing to become accountants.
   But what is the future? Mohua said, ‘The sheer speed of business life has increased rapidly. In the 21st century this means that management training and development will have to alter drastically.’
   This is something ACCA recently discovered as part of its research into management training, called ‘the future of professional development’.
   This is the latest report in ACCA’s Insight Series, which look at professional development trends around the world. This new report talks about what happens after people have qualified in a profession. Continuing Professional Development, or CPD, often becomes an integral part of being an ACCA member once qualified.
   ‘We insist that members undertake regular CPD programmes so they remain up to date with the work that they do. This is a similar case in a lot of professions – in law and medicine’, she pointed out.
   According to the report, if continuing professional development programmes are to be fit for purpose, keep up with regulatory change and provide acceptable returns on the millions of cash invested each year, then a radical overhaul is needed.
   ACCA believes strongly that the standard business type lectures cannot survive. Like students, business professionals need immediate access to good quality information, and they need to know how to apply it to their work.
   Mohua said the one size fits all course will need to be more practical, and allow for professional peers to network. Time demands will also have to be met –and this is where the global phenomena of LinkedIn and Facebook have seen a huge demand – where like minded people met on line to discuss issues and address work based problems.
   ‘Looking ahead, financial professionals will need faster access to knowledge and information due to the pace and frequency of regulatory, economic and business changes’, she observed.
   She adds that employers around the world also face a challenge to ensure that development programmes offer enough variety to appeal to all four generations of workers, from Generation Y – those born in the 1980s through to Baby Boomers – those born in the 1940s.

Japan’s Nissan Motor and Chrysler of the United States have scrapped a plan to supply vehicles to each other because of the ongoing turmoil in the industry, the two companies said.
   Nissan had announced last year it would provide to Chrysler a compact sedan for the South American market beginning this year and a small vehicle for global markets from 2010.
   Chrysler, which has since partnered with Italy’s Fiat as part of its bankruptcy plan, had been due to supply a pickup truck to Nissan from 2011.
   But the two companies decided to end the project ‘in light of significant changes in business conditions since the projects were announced,’ according to a joint statement released late on Wednesday.
   The move comes after Chrysler and Fiat sealed a deal in June to create a new auto giant after the Italian maker stepped in to salvage the bankrupt US firm.
   Fiat will at first hold 20 per cent of Chrysler Group, with its equity stake rising to 35 per cent and eventually to a majority stake as long as certain targets are achieved and US government funds are repaid.
   Nissan, Japan’s third largest automaker, is 44-per cent owned by France’s Renault. The Japanese maker is axing 20,000 jobs in an effort to recover from its first annual loss in almost a decade.

Assets held by the world’s 100 biggest Islamic banks grew 66 per cent in 2008 from the previous year despite the financial turmoil that clobbered mainstream lenders, a report said Friday.
   The top 100 Islamic banks held assets totalling 580 billion US dollars last year, up from 350 billion dollars in 2007, according to an annual report by The Asian Banker, a magazine for financial professionals.
   In the same period, Asia’s 300 biggest banks saw their assets rise by a much slower 13.4 per cent, it said.
   A financial storm sparked by a crisis in the US housing market swept across the world late last year. Its impact spilled over into the general economy and sent several countries into recession.
   Prominent US investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed into bankruptcy, while several other major Western banks suffered massive losses.
    ‘Despite the financial turmoil in late 2008 that crippled so many large Western institutions, Islamic banks have continued to grow in prominence and size,’ the magazine said in a press statement.
   Emmanuel Daniel, the magazine’s president and chief executive, added: ‘Islamic finance has seen an incredible surge in popularity, based on stronger regulatory regimes and a better international understanding of its dynamics.’
   Islamic banking fuses principles of sharia or Islamic law and modern banking. Islamic funds are banned from investing in companies associated with tobacco, alcohol or gambling.
   Iranian banks were the biggest players in the global Islamic banking sector, holding seven out of the top 10 rankings and 12 out of the 100, but Saudi Arabian lenders were more profitable, the report said.
   Saudi Arabia’s Al Rajhi Bank had the highest net income of 1.74 billion dollars, which is more than five times the earnings of Bank Tejarat, Iran’s most profitable lender.
   Iranian banks also took up 40 per cent of the total assets of the top 100 banks, with the UAE, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait accounting for a combined 40 per cent. Smaller banks in 10 other markets accounted for the rest.
   Outside of the Middle East, two Islamic banks in Britain made it to the top 100, according to the report.
   Asian and North African banks ‘are still very small’ compared with the Middle Eastern players, it said, adding that ‘only Malaysian and Bangladeshi Islamic banks have a significant amount of assets’.
   Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, had only two banks on the list, Pakistan had three, while regional financial centre Singapore and the Malay Islamic kingdom of Brunei had one each.

China Unicom and US high-tech giant Apple announced Friday they had reached a multi-year deal to launch the widely popular iPhone in the world’s largest mobile market later this year.
   The announcement marks the iPhone’s long-awaited debut on the mainland, which has about 687 million mobile phone users and is one of the last major markets where the trendy smartphone is not yet officially sold.
    ‘Today, the company and Apple reached a multi-year agreement for the company to sell iPhones in China,’ China Unicom chairman Chang Xiaobing told a press conference in Hong Kong.
    ‘The initial launch is expected to be in the fourth calendar quarter of 2009. This will provide users with a brand new communication and information experience.’
   Alan Hely, an Apple spokesman based in London, confirmed the deal to AFP, but gave no specifics.
   Chang said China Unicom and Apple would offer stripped-down eight-, 16-, and 32-gigabyte iPhones without wireless Internet capability.

The yen was lower against the dollar and the euro in Asian trade on Friday as concerns deepened about the sustainability of Japan’s economic recovery after the jobless rate hit a record high.
   The dollar edged up to 93.62 yen in Tokyo morning trade from 93.45 in New York late Thursday. The euro gained to 1.4363 dollars from 1.4345 and to 134.45 yen against 134.16.
    ‘Moderate selling of the yen emerged after the release of weak indicators, including the jobless rate,’ said Akira Takeuchi, a dealer at Chuo Mitsui Trust Bank.
   Japan’s unemployment rate rose to a record high of 5.7 percent in July, while core consumer prices dropped 2.2 percent in the month from a year earlier, the fastest pace on record, official data showed.
    ‘Market participants continued to pay close attention to shares in Shanghai, which are now regarded as a prime factor for trade in both equity and foreign exchange markets,’ Takeuchi said.
   Chinese shares fell 1.66 percent in morning trade Friday. The yen and dollar are generally seen as safe-haven investments while the euro is viewed as a higher-risk currency and tends to rise with investor confidence.
   The market was looking ahead to Japan’s weekend elections in which Prime Minister Taro Aso’s ruling coalition looks likely to suffer a major defeat against the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), dealers said.

Asian stocks were modestly higher Friday, but worries about tighter government policies sent China's markets lower for a second day. Major European bourses opened higher.
   Trade across Asia was quiet, with many investors out for summer holidays or waiting for more clues about the strength of recovery in the global economy following the worst downturn in decades. Oil prices rose moderately, as did the dollar against the yen. Investors were hopeful about prospects for Asian exports after a US government report showed the economy shrank at a 1 per cent annualised rate in the second quarter. While unchanged from a preliminary reading on gross domestic product, the updated figure was better than the expected 1.5 per cent decline and added to evidence the world's largest economy was turning around.
   However, gains were capped by fears about China's measures to prevent the economy from overheating after loose banking policies and frenetic stimulus spending unleashed enormous liquidity that's helped lift regional markets since March.
    'Investors are still worried about the policies in China,' said Marcus Au, a market analyst at Tanrich Financial in Hong Kong. 'After helping the markets for months the China story is now starting to weigh on sentiment.'
   In early European trade, France's CAC 40 was up 0.8 per cent, Germany's DAX advanced 0.9 per cent and Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.6 per cent.
   In Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 stock average rose 60.17, or 0.6 per cent, to 10,534.14 despite news that Japan's unemployment rate rose to an all-time high in July and prices fell at a record pace - both threatening to dull the economy's recovery.
   In China, the Shanghai benchmark dove 2.9 per cent to 2,860.69, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng was off 0.7 per cent at 20,098.62.
   Korea's Kospi was up 0.5 per cent, India's Senses fell 0.4 per cent, Australia's main index rose 0.9 per cent and Taiwan's market gained 1.8 per cent.
   Overnight on Wall Street, the Dow rose 37.11, or 0.4 per cent, to close at 9,580.63. The benchmark has advanced for eight straight days, rising 445 points, or 4.9 per cent.
   The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 2.86, or 0.3 per cent, to 1,030.98, while the Nasdaq composite index rose 3.30, or 0.2 per cent, to 2,027.73.

India could record a 15 to 20 per cent crop shortfall due to widespread drought caused by a bad monsoon, the finance minister said Thursday.
   Some 252 out of India’s 626 districts have been hit by drought as a result of the weak June-to-September monsoon that is running at 26 per cent below normal, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said.
    ‘For the impact of production on the kharif (summer) crop, the exact quantum (of the shortfall) will be known only when the harvesting starts,’ he said.
    ‘But from the picture of sowing, one can easily estimate that there is likelihood of a shortfall to the extent of 15 to 20 per cent,’ the minister told a business conference.
    ‘Drought is there, there’s a rainfall deficiency to the extent of 26 per cent,’ he said.
   The annual rains are the weakest in years.
   The monsoon is dubbed an ‘economic lifeline’ in a country of nearly 1.2 billion people that is one of the world’s leading producers of rice, wheat and sugar.
   With only 40 per cent of arable land under irrigation, India’s 235 million farmers rely on the rains.
   India produced 117.7 million tonnes of food grains last summer out of which 84.58 million tonnes were rice.
   The government said earlier this month that rice production could fall by 10 million tonnes and also forecast a shortfall in production of oilseeds and sugarcane.
   Despite the rain shortfall, government officials say there will be no food shortages thanks to two years of bumper harvests.
   However, food price inflation, already soaring before the monsoon, has been pushed higher by the meagre rainfall, hitting India’s poor masses hardest.
   The finance minister says he still expects the economy to grow by ‘six per cent plus’ despite the drought thanks to a robust industrial performance.

European stock markets steadied Thursday in cautious trade after sharp gains earlier this week as investors digested a mixed batch of company earnings news.
   London’s benchmark FTSE 100 index of leading shares dropped a marginal 0.05 per cent to 4,888.25 points approaching midday.
   Frankfurt’s DAX 30 gave back 0.30 per cent to 5,505.97 points while in Paris the CAC 40 was unchanged at 3,668.60 points near the half-way stage.
   The DJ Euro Stoxx 50 index of leading eurozone shares added just 0.08 per cent to 2,790.08 points.
   On the foreign exchange market, the European single currency retreated to 1.4242 dollars.
    ‘Whilst the (equities) rally hasn’t truly run out of steam, it has slowed down over the past couple of sessions, as investors take a breather to consider if this is in fact a fools’ rally — or a sustainable move to the upside,’ said trader Brian Myers at ODL Securities.
    ‘A sense of caution seems to be the overwhelming factor,’ he added.
   France’s Credit Agricole, one of the Europe’s biggest banks, said Thursday that its second quarter profits nearly tripled on an annual basis but it still faced heavy costs due to the global financial crisis.
   Net profit in the three months to June rose to 201 million euros (287 million dollars) from the year-earlier 76 million euros.
   Credit Agricole shares were up 4.88 per cent to 13.21 euros in Paris.
   French hotel and services group Accor saw its share price rally 7.31 per cent to 37.56 euros as investors set aside poor results.

Oil prices edged towards 73 dollars on Friday, extending the previous day’s rally as the market was buoyed by a strong performance on Wall Street and a weakening US dollar, analysts said.
   New York’s main futures contract, light sweet crude for October delivery, rose 23 cents to 72.72 dollars a barrel in morning trade.
   Brent North Sea crude for delivery in October gained nine cents to 72.60 dollars.
   Crude futures rebounded Thursday after two days of losses, lifted by a weaker dollar late in the session and rallying US share prices.
    ‘The catalyst behind the recovery was based as usual on stocks flipping back into positive territory combined with a renewed weakening in the US dollar,’ said ODL Securities analyst Marius Paun.
   Wall Street’s blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.39 percent to 9,580.63 points, ending higher for an eighth straight session and extending its longest winning streak in 28 months.
   There were also gains on the tech-heavy Nasdaq and the Standard & Poor’s 500 index.
   Oil got support from a weaker dollar, which makes dollar-priced crude cheaper for buyers using stronger currencies and therefore tends to stimulate demand and lift prices.
   The New York contract jumped to 75.00 dollars on Tuesday for the first time in 10 months after strong US consumer confidence data, but fell back on profit-taking after failing to break through that key barrier.
   Oil lost more ground on Wednesday after official data showed a surprise jump in crude inventories in the United States, the world’s biggest energy consuming nation.

Half a dozen new cases of ‘exploding iPhones’ emerged in France last week, as Apple faced an official inquiry and calls to come clean over possible risks linked to its wildly popular smartphone.
   An 80-year-old pensioner from the Paris suburbs said Wednesday his iPhone screen cracked up in his hands, a day after a supermarket watchman claimed he was hurt in the eye when his screen suddenly shattered this week.
   Ten French consumers have now come forward saying their iPhone screens exploded or cracked without explanation, according to an AFP tally, including a first case in mid-August in which a teenager suffered an eye injury.
   Apple is accused of trying to hush up 15 cases of iPod music players heating up and bursting into flames in the United States and in one similar British case, all apparently due to overheated lithium ion batteries.
   None of the incidents has caused a serious injury but Apple was forced to defend the safety of its flagship smartphone before the European Union this month, insisting the exploding screen cases were ‘isolated incidents’.
   The US technology giant, which has sold 26 million iPhones and 200 million iPods to date, said it been informed of the French cases, but would not comment until it had examined the damaged phones.
    ‘We are aware of these reports and we are waiting to receive the iPhones from the customers. Until we have the full details, we don’t have anything further to add,’ Alan Hely, head of communications at Apple Europe, told AFP.
   But France’s official competition, consumer affairs and fraud watchdog, the DGCCRF, has launched an investigation to find out whether the Apple smartphone could pose a threat to consumers.
    ‘An investigation is under way. We have been alerted to the problem and we are looking into it closely,’ a spokesman said Tuesday.
   France’s consumer rights group, UFC-Que Choisir, also called on Apple to come clean about possible faults with its iPod and iPhone devices.
    ‘We want to know if this is an isolated incident as they claim, or a real problem involving the iPhone — in which case, what are they planning by way of compensation and to prevent it happening again?’ said a spokesman.
   In the British case Apple came under fire for allegedly asking the young girl’s family to sign a confidentiality agreement — slammed as a ‘gagging order’ — before it would agree to refund her.
   In the latest French incident, Rolland Caufman, a pensioner from the Paris suburb of Noisy-le-Sec, says his iPhone screen broke up on July 21, the week after he bought it.
    ‘I went out shopping, with my iPhone in my left pocket, when I suddenly felt it heat up and start vibrating — even though I never use the vibrate setting.
    ‘I took it out of my pocket and held it to my ear — and saw the screen crack up like a car windscreen,’ he told AFP.
   Caufman says Apple initially refused to believe him, before finally sending him a free replacement.
   On Tuesday, 26-year-old security guard Yassine Bouhadi, claimed he was hit in the eye with a glass shard when the screen of his iPhone cracked up. He said he would seek a full refund and file suit for damages.
   French mobile phone operator Orange said it had been contacted by two customers with shattered iPhone screens, out of 1.2 million iPhones sold.
   The European Commission has asked all 27 EU nations to keep it informed of any problems, under the community’s rapid alert system for dangerous consumer products, known as RAPEX.
   Commission spokeswoman Helen Kearns said ‘Apple has been very cooperative’, stressing that RAPEX alerts were issued every week — sometimes leading to mass product recalls, but at other times with no consequence.
    ‘We’re not there yet. We just need to monitor closely now and see if these are isolated incidents,’ she told AFP.
    ‘We’ll be vigilant and if necessary we’ll take further actions. But we need to examine the situation better.’

In the current hunt for savings in the health care system by developed countries like the United States, one idea sounds simple: Just get doctors to quit ordering unnecessary procedures and tests.
   An article published on the US business news web site, NPR, says evidence suggests that some doctors dole out more treatment, and yet their patients don’t fare better.
   If you talk to doctors, though, the idea of cutting back starts to sound more complicated. Take, for example, Drs. Paul Teirstein and Eric Topol. Both are interventional cardiologists practicing at Scripps Health in San Diego. Yet the two physicians see their field, and health care in general, from opposite poles. Teirstein calls Topol a good friend, but says, ‘We disagree a lot. I find him challenging.’
   Dr. Eric Topol, also a cardiologist, says doctors have an incentive to use stents more often than necessary.
   One of their biggest disagreements concerns stents, tiny metal tubes that cardiologists use to open clogged arteries and relieve chest pain. Studies show that cardiologists sometimes use stents in scenarios where research would indicate they are unnecessary.
   Topol says he believes as many as 20 per cent of all stents aren’t really needed. He notes that annually, 1.2 million patients undergo a stent procedure. ‘Undoubtedly, that’s more than we need to do,’ he says.
   Sitting in the same California hospital, Teirstein says he’s not convinced by the research Topol leans on. Teirstein is an ardent believer in the technology and puts in an average of seven stents a day. ‘I definitely have a bias towards stents,’ he says. ‘I have a lot of experience with stents. I’ve seen patients do so much better.’
   It’s clear that many patients with serious blockages in their arteries have benefited greatly from stents. But a lot depends on the exact type of treatment involved. A trial called COURAGE — short for Clinical Outcomes Utilizing Revascularization and Aggressive Drug Evaluation — found that for patients with ‘stable angina,’ stents are no better than drugs at preventing heart attacks or death.
   Drugs take a while to work, Teirstein argues, while stents offer an ‘instant fix.’ After surgery to receive a stent, patients tend to go home quickly and feel better almost immediately.
   Topol counters that cardiologists, like most doctors, get paid on a fee-for-service basis. The more stent procedures they do, the more money they make. Topol says that dynamic has to drive up the number of stent procedures. ‘Some of it is financially motivated, but at a subconscious level,’ he says.
   Teirstein says income is not the driving factor. ‘The physicians I know do what I do, which is say, ‘If this was my mother or father, what would I do?’ Financial incentive is the last thing you think about,’ he says. ‘What is inspiring is trying to help a patient.’
   If policymakers are to uncover health care savings in curbing unnecessary procedures, they’ll need doctors to believe that at least some of what they do is wasteful. As the ongoing conversation between Teirstein and Topol shows, individual doctors make sense of the available research differently, as each makes choices for individual patients.
   The one thing Topol and Teirstein agree on is that they want to be able to make those choices. They’re fine with telling each other what to do, even when they don’t agree. They just don’t want the government or insurers telling them what to do.

Germany Friday threw its weight behind a scheme to limit bonuses for bankers as part of a drive towards greater financial market regulation to be debated at a key Group of 20 meeting next month.
    ‘The federal government welcomes the French proposal for an international initiative on pay in the banking sector,’ Klaus Vater, a spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel, told a regular briefing.
    ‘Compensation systems can contribute to systemic risks that can arise in banks. In Germany, we have already introduced a raft of measures to reduce excesses in managers’ pay,’ he added.
   French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Wednesday he would call for limits on bonuses for bank executives when he takes his campaign for greater regulation to the G20 summit in Pittsburgh on September 24-25.
    ‘We will propose a strengthening of sanctions towards banks that do not play by the rules and we will even raise the issue of limiting the size of bonuses,’ Sarkozy said in Paris.
   Responding in a television interview on Wednesday, Merkel said she was ‘annoyed that in certain banks, everything is starting up again as it was before’ and that the topic would be a ‘central theme’ at the G20 meeting.
   The French plans also received backing from Brussels, with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso on Thursday stressing the need for ‘reinforced ethics.’

Hitachi Ltd., NEC Corp. and Casio Computer Co. are in talks about a possible merger of their mobile phone businesses in a bid to improve profitability, reports said Friday.
   NEC is negotiating to take a stake of more than 50 percent in Casio Hitachi Mobile Communications Co., a joint venture which was founded in 2004 by Casio and Hitachi, Kyodo News reported, citing unnamed sources.
   Together the three would have the second-largest share in the Japanese mobile phone handset market, behind Sharp Corp.
   The three companies declined to confirm the report.
   Most Japanese already own a mobile telephone and operators and handset manufactures are facing growing challenges to boost revenue in a crowded market, particularly given the weak economy and shrinking population.

Toyota Motor said Friday that it was abandoning a plant in California that it jointly owned with ailing US giant General Motors, marking the first time it has pulled the plug on a factory.
   The move follows GM’s decision in June to drop its ownership stake in the joint venture, New United Motor Manufacturing Inc, as it restructured under bankruptcy protection.
   While a final decision on the fate of the plant and its 4,700 workers will be left to the NUMMI management, its closure now looks almost certain.
   Toyota has never been involved in shutting an assembly plant anywhere in the world, so it would be a first for the world’s largest automaker.
   The plant in Fremont, California will end production for Toyota in March and shift output of Tacoma pick-ups to a factory in Texas, while Corollas will be manufactured in Canada and Japan for the North American market.
    ‘We have determined that over the mid- to long-term, it just would not be economically viable to continue the production contract with NUMMI,’ said Toyota’s North American head, Atsushi Niimi.
    ‘This is most unfortunate, and we deeply regret having to take this action,’ he added. Toyota cannot promise the affected workers jobs at its own plants, Niimi said.
    ‘They will not be prioritised over applicants from the local community’ if they apply for new jobs with Toyota, he told reporters in a teleconference.
   Toyota, which overtook US rival GM in 2008 as the world’s largest automaker, is struggling to cut costs after falling into the red for the first time, with a 436.9 billion yen (4.7 billion dollar) loss in the year to March.

The 5th annual meeting of the Asian Shippers Council was held recently in the Sri Lankan capital city of Colombo.
   Port and shipping minister of Sri Lanka Chamal Rajapakse inaugurated the meeting, attended by representatives from different countries, including Bangladesh.
   Senior vice chairman of Shippers’ Council of Bangladesh Md Rezaul Karim lead the 5-member Bangladesh delegation to the meeting. The other members are Syed Mostafa Rahman, Md Firoz Alam, Nanda Kisore Agarwala and Sujit Kumar Bhattacharyya.
   Participants at the meeting discussed the problems of shippers and urged the authorities concerned to reduce all surcharges for ocean freights, an SCB press release said.

Crown Cement was recently awarded for its contributions to the country’s construction sector, a company news release said.
   Right to Shelter in association with Real Estate and Housing Association of Bangladesh gave the award to some manufacturers of indigenous construction materials. Crown Cement was among the recipients.