The ongoing schedule crisis of the national flag carrier Biman Bangladesh Airlines would not be resolved until the induction of new generation aircrafts in the fleet, said the concerned individuals.
   Biman officials, pilots, travel agents and passengers are of the opinion that the national airline could not survive without new generation aircrafts. A decision needs to be taken very soon to procure new aircrafts to stop Biman from incurring further financial loss and tarnishing its image, they say.
   Due to acute shortage of aircrafts and frequent technical problems faced by the existing aircrafts, most of which are quite old, the troubled airline has been suffering schedule crisis for a while. But, the situation became very bad few days ago causing untold sufferings to its passengers.
   Five of the Biman’s six aircrafts that are used for international routes were grounded about a week before due to technical problems triggering cancellations of flights to and from Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Jeddah and Rome.
   Middle-eastern routes are the profitable ones among the limited number of international routes operated by Biman.
   Zia International Airport on Monday experienced demonstration from the passengers in protest of cancellation of their flights.
   Though the schedule is bit better now after the repairing the aircrafts, it will take some time for the schedule to get normal.
   ‘Things are getting better. But, the schedule is yet to be normal…Still there are delays,’ MM Asaduzzaman, director (engineering) of Biman, told New Age.
   Replying to a question, he said, ‘We need more aircrafts.’
   Owing to aircraft shortage, Biman had to trim a number of its routes in last few years. The closed routes included like Dhaka-New York, Dhaka-Frankfurt, Dhaka-Paris and Dhaka-Tokyo.
   The national flag carrier has recently suspended Dhaka-Delhi and Dhaka-Bangkok routes reducing Biman’s number of international destinations to 16. Besides, it has reduced frequencies on number of routes including some profitable middle-eastern routes.
   ‘This is not a new problem for Biman. We have been facing aircraft shortage for a long time. And, to make the matter even worse, most of the aircrafts are very old. In last two years, Biman has shut down 10 international routes due to these problems,’ a senior Biman pilot told New Age requesting anonymity.
   He also said that it took the airline quite a long time to earn the confidence of the passengers of those routes. ‘Now, other airlines have taken control of those routes.’
   The pilot further said, ‘Even after procuring new aircrafts Biman will find it difficult to retake the passengers of the closed routes.’
   ‘Something needs to be done about Biman immediately. We need more aircrafts. Not only business, the image of business is being tarnished. People are now scared to fly on Biman,’ said a senior official of the airline.
   He said, ‘The schedule problem will continue as long as we have these old aircrafts. After repairing they will have troubles again. We need permanent solution to this problem.’
   Currently, there are eight aircrafts – four DC 10-30s, two Airbus A310-300s and two F-28s – to serve its 16 international and three domestic destinations. Among them, F-28s are used in domestic and regional destinations.
   The DC 10-30s are 29-year-old, two Airbus A310-300s are 13-year-old while the F-28s are 31-year-old.
   The DC 10-30s and F-28s are technically vulnerable due to their ages, couple of pilots said adding that these technical difficulties could contribute to unsafe operations.
   They also said that in the current severe schedule crisis, the aircrafts are not given proper rests posing risks to the passengers.
   ‘Without immediate induction of new generation aircrafts in the fleet, it will not be possible to save the national flag carrier. The board of directors of Biman will have to decide urgently to procure new aircrafts,’ said Capt Mahbubur Rahman, the general secretary of the Bangladesh Airline Pilots’ Association.
   About the schedule crisis, the managing director and chief executive officer of Biman, Zakiul Islam, told New Age that the aircrafts are having defects that are being sorted out by the engineers.
   Replying to a question, he said, ‘Once you have schedule problem, it will take some time to get back to normal. I hope we will run a normal schedule 2-3 days.’
   Shortage of aircrafts is nothing new with the airline, he added.
   Acknowledging the sufferings of the passengers, Zakiul said that things would be alright after procurement of 3 to 4 aircrafts on lease within 2 to 3 months.
   About flying planes without giving them proper rest putting passengers at risk, he said that under no circumstances Biman is flying unsafe aircrafts.
   The Biman chief executive, however, said that more maintenance works could have been carried out if the aircrafts were allowed more time on the ground.

Share offloading of Navana CNG Limited was remained halted for around one and a half hour on Sunday because of sale orders from brokers other than designated selling brokers on the company’s debut day at the bourses, a DSE official said.
   ‘Detecting the anomalies, the bourses halted the share trading of the company at around 11:00am and maintained the suspension till 12:30pm,’ said the official.
   As per initial trading regulations, no brokerage houses excepting ICB Securities Trading Co and Sharp Securities, the seller’s agents, was allowed to submit any sale orders on the first trading day of the company, he said.
   The company’s share trading, however, resumed at 12:30pm and continued till 1:00pm, he said. As per the initial trading process, on the first day, trading of the shares of Navana CNG was supposed to take place at the spot market between 10:30am and 1:00pm.
   DSE sources said after consulting with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Dhaka and Chittagong stock exchanges withdrew the suspension.
   ‘We are looking into the matter,’ SEC executive director Anwarul Kabir Bhuiyan told reporters. ‘We are gathering information on the incident from brokerage houses-Total Communication, Multi Securities and Services, and Rashid Investment Services, which submitted the sale orders,’ he said.
   Share price of Navana CNG, however, on its debut on Sunday skyrocketed with a 1,839-per cent gain to close at Tk 193.90 at the Dhaka Stock Exchange. At the Chittagong Stock Exchange, the company’s share price was Tk 190.70 at close.
   The company, main line of business of which is compressed natural gas conversion and CNG re-fuelling, made its debut at bourses to offload 1,81,50,000 ordinary shares of Tk 10 each through the direct listing method, an alternative way of enlisting to the market.
   On Sunday, the company offloaded 16,57,800 shares worth Tk 31.58 crore at the DSE and 18,300 shares worth Tk 34.87 lakh at the CSE.
   There will be no trading of the company’s shares today (Monday) to allow the market to distribute the shares traded at the first trading day, DSE sources said.

As apprehended earlier, the inward remittance declined in August, raising further concern about the future of the country’s major green bucks’ earning source.
   The Bangladesh Bank data, released on August 27, shows the country received $659.27 million until the third week of this month, $226.11 million less from July 2009 and $62.66 million from August 2008.
   Remittance inflow was $885.38 million in July 2009 when it was $721.92 in August 2008.
   ‘At the end of this, the total amount of the remittance will be little bit more from the amount received up to the 20th of August,’ a Bangladesh Bank official said.
   But he was not very confident about any positive growth in remittance in the near future as the number of migrant workers in the recent time went down.
   Many media reports suggest that like other migrant workers, Bangladeshi people abroad are also getting very low wages and in some case no payment from their employers, affected by the global economic recession.
   Officials at the expatriate welfare ministry, however, said that the government had taken some measures to help more people to get overseas jobs. Besides, some of the Bangladesh missions abroad would also open special wing to provide the immigrant workers with necessary supports in solving their job related problems.
   According to the central bank, the country received $9689.26 million as remittance in the past 2008-09 financial year.
   A recent World Bank report forecast that the recession, though fading out, would attribute to the substantial slide in the remittance inflow particularly to the developing countries.
   A senior economist at the World Bank Dhaka office, however, was optimistic about the future remittance inflow. Citing to a study of the WB he showed that remittance inflow would remain high should the oil prices rebound to $80 a barrel.

Dhaka stocks opened the week down with DSE general index losing 11.51 points on Sunday, the first trading day of the week.
   Market operators said the market opened the day’s trading upbeat thanks to the rise in share prices of mutual funds, but started falling after the initial hour with most of the securities went red.
   Debut of Navana CNG also put an impact on the market with the company topped the turnover leaders with a Tk 31.58-crore, they said.
   The general index of Dhaka Stock Exchange lost 0.39 per cent to close at 2,966.21, while its blue chips index, DSE20, shed 4 points, or 0.19 per cent, to finish at 2,104.74.
   Of the total 234 issues traded, 77 advanced, 152 declined, and five remained unchanged.

The Bangladesh Bank is finalising a deal with the BRAC and some other major non-government organisations to disburse Taka 500 crore soft loan to the cash-strapped sharecroppers.
   A BB source said the central bank would sign the agreement with the BRAC and other NGOs on Wednesday.
   The NGOs will distribute loans to the sharecroppers in 150 upazilas during the next crop season.
   They will also form small groups of sharecroppers and train them in their professions and managing of loans so they could perform better in farming and repayments of the loans as well.
   In a board meeting on August 7, the central bank approved a Taka 500 crore fund for the sharecroppers, who require cash during crop season.
   The board also fixed the interest rate at 10 percent so the marginal borrowers could afford the loan. The loan would be given to the groups of sharecroppers instead of individuals.
   The central bank, for the first time, offered sharecroppers the soft loan facility.
   At present, most of the sharecroppers could not borrow money from the conventional credit system mainly due to their inability to provide collateral against the loan.
   ‘In many cases, the sharecroppers borrow money from local lenders and pay high interests after harvesting of crops, keeping little return for them,’ a BB official said.
   He observed that the soft loan would give cheaper credit option to the sharecroppers ensuring supply of necessary fund to the farming sector. ‘It would also help increase crop production in the country,’ he added.

In a major move the Malaysian Agate Group of Companies has proposed investing US$ 3 billion in different projects in Bangladesh.
   The group identified three major areas such as power generation, manpower development and trade promotion for such investment.
   Dr Sultan Abdul Qader, leader of the a 13-member visiting delegation of the Agate Group expressed the desire in Dhaka on Sunday to commerce minister Faruk Khan when they met him at his secretariat office.
   The proposal include setting up 1000MW power plants based on coal fire facilities, setting up medical schools and other training facilities to create qualified nurses and other technicians, developing manpower having three months to three years training suitable for employment market abroad.
   The delegation also proposed exporting 1.5 million tonnes palm oil to Bangladesh from Malaysia.
   The commerce minister praised the Malaysian move especially under joint ventures. Faruk Khan said Bangladesh had a huge population adding Malaysia could mobilise capital and technology to utilise it to the mutual benefit of both the countries.

The government has decided to build a 50,000-tonne concrete wheat grain silo at Joimonirgol near Mongla port, according to the food minister.
   The decision came from at an inter-ministerial meeting presided over by minister Abdur Razzaque in the food ministry at the Secretariat on Sunday.
   He told reporters that now only 15 lakh tonnes of food grains could be stored, which was pretty inadequate.
   The government will build food silos for storing at least another seven lakh tonnes of food grains.
   The proposed silo to be built at Joimonirgol, 13km from Mongla, will also have a special jetty built there matching the silo, he said.
   The Japan-assisted Tk-230 crore silo and jetty construction project was initially approved by the ECNEC in 1997, but it was never implemented in the past decade.
   A priority project of the incumbent government, the proposed food silo site has been selected because the river channel at Joimonirgol has sufficient depth, above nine feet, for 25-30,000 tonnes food grains-carrying ships to navigate.
   The ministry officials said Mongla port handles about 40 per cent of the imported food grains, which should be handled much more efficiently once a large food silo goes up.
   The meeting discussed and decided various relevant issues such as land acquisition, building a bridge across the Mongla channel or operating round-the-clock ferry service, widening highway, strengthening the culverts for heavy vehicles and providing power and other infrastructural supports.
   The inter-ministerial meeting was also attended by food secretary Mokhlesur Rahman, additional secretary Ahmed Hossain Khan, joint secretary Jahirul Haque, Mongla Port Authority member Abdul Mannan, Roads and Highways Division joint secretary Nasir Uddin Khan and representatives from BIWTA, BIWTC, shipping ministry, land ministry and Rural Electrification Board.

Summit Alliance Port Limited and APL (Bangladesh) Pvt Ltd, a global transportation and logistics company engaged in shipping and related businesses, have signed and agreement recently.
   Under the agreement, Summit Alliance Port will be the sole off-dock service provider and build a 1,20,000-sqft custom-made warehouse from which APL will consolidate their entire cargo volume, a news release said.
   Summit Alliance Port chairman Muhammad Aziz Khan and deputy managing director Yasser Rizvi, and APL managing director Indika Dassanyake were present in the signing ceremony.

General Motors said on Sunday it had agreed to set up a light commercial vehicle production venture with major Chinese automaker FAW Group, with total investment of 2 billion yuan ($293 million).
   The 50-50 joint venture, based in the northeast China city of Changchun in Jilin province, will make light-duty trucks and vans, GM said in a statement.
   ‘For us in China, this is an important complement to the rest of our portfolio,’ Kevin Wale, president and managing director for GM’s China operations, told reporters in a conference call.
   ‘We are well established in passenger vehicles and mini commercial vehicles and we haven’t had a presence in the truck segment. Adding a truck portfolio rounds that out.’
   The venture will use two existing FAW plants in Changchun and the city of Harbin, also in the northeast, with combined annual capacity of roughly 90,000 vehicles, Wale said.
   A Greenfield plant, currently under construction in Harbin, will add 100,000 units of capacity by the end of next year, he said.
   Vehicles made at the venture will carry the FAW brand and will focus on supplying the China market, but they could be exported under a GM brand through the Detroit automaker’s global network in the future, Wale said.
   GM is making Buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac models at its flagship China venture with SAIC Motor Corp. It also makes minivans, pickup trucks and the Spark compact car in a three-way tie-up with SAIC and Liuzhou Wuling Automobile.
   SAIC-GM-Wuling sold 87,925 vehicles in July, up 90.7 per cent from a year earlier, helped by Beijing’s stimulus initiatives to support the industry, including subsidies for buyers in rural areas.
   GM, which now holds 34 per cent of SAIC-GM-Wuling, has been seeking to raise its stake in the venture.
   Domestic media reported earlier this month that GM had secured an initial deal to take over Liuzhou Wuling Auto’s 15.9 per cent stake for roughly 300 million yuan ($43.9 million).
   Wale reiterated the US automaker’s interest in raising its stake in the venture but made no further comment on the issue.

Italy on Sunday assured the government of assistance to procure passenger coaches for Bangladesh Railway.
   The assurance came when Italian ambassador Itala Occhi called on communications minister Syed Abul Hossain at his secretariat office, said an official release.
   During the meeting, the minister and the envoy discussed various issues of bilateral interest.
   The communications minister thanked the Italian government for its assistance in development of Bangladesh communications sector, particularly the renovation of Dinajpur-Panchagarh road.
   The envoy said the Italian government had assured to give $13 million ‘aid credit’ for Bangladesh communications sector in the current fiscal.

Distribution of agriculture loans began in Bogra Sunday as part of the government’s plan to boost food production for ensuring food security in the country.
   A Tk 123.87 crore was earmarked as agricultural loans in Bogra this year and out of which Tk 4.96 crore already disbursed among the farmers in July.
   Of the total loans, Sonali Bank alone is set to distribute Tk 7.40 crore while Bangladesh Rural Development Board Tk 1.30 crore.

Sun Microsystems Inc recorded a $147 million loss while sales eroded 31 per cent in the April-June period, likely the server and software maker’s last full quarter as an independent company.
   Sun’s latest numbers, reported Friday in a regulatory filing without the usual news release and conference call with analysts, highlight the uneven financial performance that forced the Santa Clara-based company to put itself up for sale.
   In April Oracle Corp outbid IBM Corp. and agreed to buy Sun in a $7.4 billion deal. It is scheduled to be completed this summer, and still needs approval from European antitrust regulators, which could come any day now.
   The deal will give Oracle more control over development of the Java programming language, which Sun invented and is a key ingredient of the Internet. It also moves Redwood Shores-based Oracle, a business software maker, into the hardware market. Sun is one of the world’s biggest sellers of computer servers, which power Web sites and corporate back offices.
   Sun said after the market closed that it lost $147 million, or 20 cents per share, in the three months ended June 30, which is Sun’s fiscal fourth quarter. That compares with a profit of $88 million, or 11 cents per share, in the year-ago period.
   Sales in the latest period fell to $2.63 billion from $3.78 billion last year.
   Revenue from server sales fell 36 per cent over last year to $1.1 billion. Revenue from support services fell 15 per cent to $886 million.
   For the full fiscal year, Sun lost $2.23 billion, versus a $403 million profit last year.
   Sun’s shares fell 2 cents to $9.32 in after-hours trading. The stock is still selling below the $9.50 per share that Oracle has agreed to pay for Sun, a sign that indicates some investors fear the deal might still be scuttled.
   The latest results mean that Sun has lost $5.6 billion since 2002. It had only two profitable years — 2007 and 2008 — in that period.

The Japanese yen advanced against the dollar in the past week as falls on Asian stock markets reduced investors' appetite for risk-taking, but lost ground following a report that the jobless rate hit a record high on Friday.
   It stood at 93.59 to the dollar in New York late Friday, up from 94.35 to the dollar there a week earlier.
   In Tokyo, the yen started the week on a weak note as improved sentiment over a global economic recovery increased sales of the Japanese unit.
   But lower Asian share prices pushed up the yen mid-week to a six-month high in the lower 93 yen level at one point on Thursday as concern over prospects for the global economy prompted safe-haven buying.
   But the currency lost some of that ground after concerns deepened about the sustainability of Japan's economic recovery following the release of employment figures.
   'Regional stock price movement remains a key driver of the currency market,' Shinichi Hayashi, a senior trader at Shinkin Central Bank, told Dow Jones Newswires.
   The market was also waiting on the outcome of a key election on Sunday, in which the opposition Democratic Party of Japan was expected to oust the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

Fareast Islami Life Insurance Co Ltd has informed that it has credited the stock dividend for the year 2008 to the respective shareholders’ BO accounts on 24.08.09. The company has also requested the shareholders concerned to collect their dividend warrants for the year 2008 from 01.09.09 to 10.09.09 from 10:00am to 3:30pm from the share department of the company at TK Bhaban (13th floor), 13 Karwan Bazar, Dhaka-1215.
   
   Sonali Aansh
   The SEC has fined Nurul Islam Patwari (chairman and managing director), Shamsunnahar (director), Mohsina Patwari (director), Md Mahbubur Rahman Patwari (director), Zafar Ahmed Patwari (director), Md Mobarak Ali (director), Rabeya Ahmed (director) and Nabiha Patwari (director) of Sonali Aansh Industries Ltd Tk 2 lakh each for non-compliance of securities laws in connection with preparation of audited financial statements for the year ended on June 30, 2007 as per IAS.
   
   Mona Food
   The SEC has fined M Abul Bashar (director), Asma Arjumand Banu (director), Md Ali Zaman (director/managing director) and Md Ismail Hossain (nominated director by ICB) of Mona Food Industry Ltd Tk 2 lakh each for non-compliance of securities laws in connection with non-submission of explanation/information on the Audited Financial Statements for the year ended on June 30, 2008.
   
   EXIM Bank
   The Bank has informed that it has credited the stock dividend for the year 2008 to the respective shareholders’ BO accounts on 26.08.09.
   
   Agrani Insurance Co Ltd
   The company will be placed in ‘A’ category from existing ‘B’ category with effect from 31.08.09 as the company reported disbursement of 10 per cent stock dividend for the year 2008.
   
   BDCOM Online Ltd
   Trading of the shares of the company will remain suspended today for record date for AGM and EGM. Another record date for entitlement of Right shares to be notified after obtaining approval from the SEC.
   Source: DSE

Australia is poised to become ‘the Middle East of gas’ as Asia’s rapidly growing economies queue up to buy its vast reserves in liquid form, according to analysts.
   The government last week approved the massive Gorgon liquefied natural gas project off Western Australia, which Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said would cost 50 billion dollars (41 billion US) to build and would generate 6,000 jobs.
   The joint venture by Chevron, Shell and ExxonMobil is already underpinned by supply contracts with China and India worth more than 60 billion US dollars, and more customers are likely to sign up before it begins operating in 2014.
   Gorgon is just one of a clutch of LNG projects planned in the next decade that analysts say will pump tens of billions of dollars into the economy and see Australia challenge Qatar as the world’s major gas exporter.
   Hailing Gorgon’s 41 billion US supply contract with PetroChina this month—the largest trade deal in Australian history—the government said LNG was an important part of the country’s future prosperity.
   ‘This unprecedented export deal confirms Australia?s importance as a global energy superpower supplying vital clean energy resources and technologies to China and our other Asia-Pacific trading partners,’ Resources Minister Martin Ferguson said.
   Asian demand for coal and iron ore have helped Australia’s economy avoid recession during the global downturn but State One Stockbroking analyst Peter Kopetz said LNG was the next boom commodity.
   The gas is liquefied for shipping abroad, where it is turned back into gas and distributed via pipeline.
   ‘The numbers are phenomenal. When you look at them it’s mind-boggling,’ he said. ‘It’s going to be LNG boom times.’
   Australia exported 15.2 million tonnes of LNG worth 5.2 billion dollars in 2006, a figure the government estimates will quadruple to 60 million tonnes by 2015 if all currently planned projects proceed.
   ‘Potentially, there could be many more projects coming on board,’ Kopetz said, pointing out that new discoveries were being made all the time.
   He said Australia had the potential to become ‘the Middle East of gas’ in coming decades as the world’s oil supplies dwindled.
   ‘Have a look at the Middle East, how they’ve benefited over the past 50-60 years from the oil boom,’ he said.
   Western Australia is the centre of the LNG boom with three huge gas fields off its northwest coast: the Carnarvon, Browse and Bonaparte basins.
   But Kopetz also points out that Queensland state on the east coast has significant reserves of coal seam gas, naturally occurring methane trapped by water deep underground that can be converted to LNG.
   Shell plans a CSG plant in Queensland expected to produce up to 16 million tonnes of LNG a year, with other energy giants such as Britain’s BG Group, ConocoPhillips, and Malaysia’s Petronas also developing projects in the area.
   Despite the proliferation of LNG schemes, EL&C Baillieu head of research Ivor Ries said there was sufficient demand from Asia.
   He said existing LNG fields in Malaysia and Indonesia were coming to the end of their operational life, creating a market for Australian gas.
   Asian buyers were also keen to source gas from Australia rather than outside the region because it offered a secure supply, Ries said.
   ‘If you’re in Asia, you don’t have to route your ships through a war zone, which is the Middle East, and the distance is shorter,’ he said.
   However, not everyone is happy about Australia’s rush to exploit its LNG reserves, with green groups raising concerns that environmental factors are being neglected.
   Environment Minister Peter Garrett has conceded Gorgon is ‘greenhouse-gas intensive’ and could raise national emissions by up to one per cent if ambitious plans to pump carbon dioxide emissions into the seabed fail.
   But while Garrett included 28 conditions in his Gorgon approval designed to protect the environment, Ries said the government was determined to develop LNG resources.
   He said the industry had the potential to overtake coal as the country’s most valuable export, generating jobs, boosting the economy and filling government coffers with tens of billions of dollars in tax revenue.
   ‘The tax figures are quite exciting for government. If all these projects go ahead, Canberra and the states of Queensland and Western Australia would be awash with cash,’ he said.

US jeans maker Levi Strauss has begun selling its denim on credit in India, offering shoppers the chance to buy a 30-dollar pair of its famous trousers in three installments.
   The technique of allowing deferred payments is an age-old commercial strategy more common for sales of washing machines or cars, but the company has embraced the concept to tempt aspirational Indians with restricted budgets.
   ‘This is the first time the world over that apparel like jeans and shirts are being sold on credit that will be deducted by the bank in three monthly installments,’ Levi Strauss India managing director Shumone Chatterjee told AFP.
   The group, which claims to have created the first blue jeans in 1873, has teamed up with India?s largest private bank, ICICI Bank, to launch the initiative in the IT hotspot of Bangalore.
   Buoyed by the response, Levi’s said it was in talks with other private banks such as HDFC to offer credit to a wider range of buyers and in other cities around the country.
   Bangalore, with its large young population of IT workers, was an obvious starting point.
   ‘Ever since we introduced the buy now, pay later scheme without interest or hidden charges in June, our sales have surged by 10-15 per cent,’ Levi’s franchise manager M. Aaron told AFP from his spacious showroom in Bangalore.
   The only condition for the credit is that the bill should be for at least 1,500 rupees (30 dollars), which means interest-free repayments of 500 rupees a month.
   The lowest price for a pair of jeans in Aaron’s store is 1600 rupees.
   Judging by the customers walking out with shopping bags, Levi’s are a hit among Bangalore’s college students, young techies and middle-aged professionals who were busily swiping their credit cards.
   The move is an attempt by Levi Strauss to tap into the burgeoning demand for Western-branded clothes among India’s growing middle class.
   Changing lifestyles, rising incomes and the influence of Western culture have fuelled demand for designer clothing in India, an obvious symbol of wealth in the status-conscious country.
   ‘With rapidly changing and globally exposed lifestyles, tastes and desires, consumers in India are seeking means to upgrade and update their wardrobes,’ Levi’s brand manager Vishal Bhalla said.
   Harish Bijoor, a brand specialist who runs an Indian consultancy, told AFP that he expected the installment plan to tempt buyers who might have been put off by the total price tag.
   It could also boost sales at a time when consumer spending has weakened because of a broader slowdown in the Indian economy in the wake of the global financial crisis.
   ‘The Levi’s scheme is a trendsetter in the jeanswear or apparel industry, which has been growing in double-digits over a decade,’ he said.
   ‘The scheme makes branded products like Levi’s jeans affordable to a critical mass,’ he added.

A sugar crisis in Pakistan has wrong-footed the political leadership as mills owned by lawmakers are blamed for compounding the miseries of Pakistanis and housewives struggle to sweeten the Eid festival. The country now plans to import sugar to stabilise the market.
   Depleted crops, international prices at 30-year highs and hoarding are variously blamed for Pakistan’s latest commodity price hike, forcing the federal government to eye costly imports to stabilise prices.
   Pakistan is Asia’s third-largest user of sugar and the world’s fifth largest producer of sugar cane, according to the Pakistan Sugar Mills Association.
   Despite this production, finance minister Shaukat Tarin told the news agency imports were now needed.
   ‘We’ll import 300,000 tons of raw sugar and 75,000 tons of refined sugar to stabilise domestic prices,’ he said.
   A kilo of sugar cost 25 rupees (three US cents) at the start of 2009 and now costs more than 50 rupees, said independent economic analyst AB Shahid.
   Estimates show a 23 per cent decline in sugar crop production. While last year Pakistan produced 4.7 million tonnes, farmers are on track to produce 3.2 million tonnes this year. That means a severe shortfall as annual national consumption is 4.2 million tonnes.
   Low rainfall has exacerbated the shortage but Pakistani manufacturers have been blamed for fuelling the problem.
   ‘Sugar mill owners created an artificial shortage crisis. This is a clear case of total loss of government control over the market,’ said Shahid.
   Some of the country’s 80 mills are owned by influential lawmakers affiliated both to the government and the opposition, injecting politics into sugar as into almost everything else in Pakistan.
   ‘There are interest groups on our political landscape who... shelter each other in public because they have common vested interests,’ said Shahid.
   ‘Such food crisis shortages will escalate further because we have a useless government, which does not know what to do. No trade body takes action against the black marketers and hoarders and we see total anarchy,’ he said.
   The International Sugar Organisation says worldwide sugar supplies are expected to fall nine million tonnes short of demand in 2008-09.
   In south Asia, sugar has major social and political implications. It is a key part of the diet and an essential ingredient for delicacies at religious festivals, of which Eid al-Fitr is coming up in Pakistan and Diwali in India.
   Pakistan, the world’s second most-populous Muslim nation, is observing the holy month of Ramadan, when after the dawn-to-dusk daily fast and the Eid holiday at the end, people consume more sugar and flour than normally.
   ‘My husband is a labourer and the only breadwinner in the family, which is why we have reduced consumption of sugar and meat despite Ramadan because we simply can’t afford it,’ said Pakistani housewife Samina Fateh.
   She lives in the poor neighbourhood of Liauatabad in Pakistan’s teeming financial capital of 14 million people sprawled on the Arabian Sea.
   ‘With the same money we buy half the amount of sugar as a couple of months ago. We used to eat meat and fish twice a month, now once a month,’ said Fateh.
   The benchmark has seen sugar futures at the New York-based Intercontinental Exchange rise five per cent to 22 cents a pound for October delivery, the highest since March 30, 1981.
   The federal government is offering a one-billion-rupee ($12m) subsidy on essential food items through a chain of state-run utility stores across the country.
   ‘Mill owners hoarded sugar and themselves increased prices thinking the government will ultimately import,’ said Rana Sanaullah, law minister in Punjab, one of Pakistan’s sugar-producing provinces.
   ‘There is a lack of consumer protection bodies in the country, which is the main reason that our people suffer,’ he added.
   But mill owners take a different line, accusing the cash-strapped government of agreeing to imports too late.
   ‘The government is responsible for the sugar crisis,’ said Humayun Akhtar Khan, a leader in the opposition Muslim League-Q party whose family owns a sugar mill partly held responsible by some ministers.
   Neighbouring rival India is also reeling from a poor sugar crop, forcing it to import from ultra-expensive international markets.
   The country is estimated to have only 4.5 million tonnes of sugar stock left, which would meet demand for just two months.

France has received a list of 3,000 French taxpayers with bank accounts in Switzerland as part of a double taxation agreement signed between the two countries last week, according to a report in a French newspaper Sunday.
   French Budget Minister Eric Woerth was quoted in the weekly Journal du Dimanche as saying the accounts contained some euro3 billion ($4.3 billion), ‘some of which is very likely linked to tax evasion.’
   Woerth called on the account holders to come forward and bring their tax affairs in order by the end of the year. He ruled out an amnesty for tax evaders. ‘That would be an indefensible injustice,’ he said according to the interview published on the paper’s Web site.
   Swiss officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
   If confirmed, it would be the second time Switzerland has agreed to set aside its strict banking secrecy rules and hand over the names of foreigners suspected of tax evasion.
   Earlier this month Switzerland agreed to give the United States the names of 4,450 American taxpayers suspected of setting up secret offshore accounts with the help of Swiss bank UBS AG. The deal was part of a settlement to end a long-running US probe against UBS, which became the focus of Washington’s efforts to crack down on tax evaders.
   European countries, led by France and Germany, have demanded similar access to information about their citizens with Swiss bank accounts. A meeting of the 30-nation Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development in April agreed to impose economic sanctions against those countries that refuse to abide by the Paris-based watchdog group’s guidelines for tax information exchange.
   The Swiss government has since pledged to sign a dozen new or revised tax information exchange agreements, but maintains that the country’s banking secrecy rules will remain.