The country’s largest software and information technology exhibition of the year, BASIS SoftExpo 2009, concludes today, with a target to increase the income from IT-enabled services to $150 million from the present $7 million by 2011, software and information service leaders said.
   Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services coordinator of events Nurul Alam said the BASIS organised the event to facilitate a presentation of the country’s potentials in information and communication technology to international players in different fields, like national and international vendors and service providers, investors, development agencies, policymakers, and ICT associations.
   With four foreign companies from the USA, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and Saudi Arab, 93 organisations including three universities are showcasing their products and services in 122 stalls and eight pavilions at the five-day exhibition at Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Centre in Dhaka.
   BASIS president Habibullah N Karim said the size of the present global software and IT services is $300 billion. ‘If we can take just 0.50 per cent of the service market, the country’s income from the sector will stand at $150 million by 2011, up from the present $7 million,’ he noted.
   The BASIS, a platform of 281 member organisations, arranges the annual event to exhibit the software and IT services industry in Bangladesh.
   The theme of this year’s expo is ‘Linking People with Technology’.
   ICT companies, international ICT associations, local software development companies, successful ICT projects initiated by multinational and local companies, government departments and agencies implementing e-governance projects, ICT training institutes and universities dominate the participants of the expo.
   Genuity System LTD is exhibiting its unique gPlex Softswitch Call Centre Solution, Grameen Phone showing its facilities — like BillPay, Cell Bazar, CIC Heathline, Data Service and Basic GSM — offered to customers, and Desktop Computer Connection Ltd displaying the Desktop e-Banking system ClickBD Ltd.
   Winux Soft Ltd, US Software Ltd, Roots Information Technology, Moon Networks, Agree Ya Solutions from the USA, Mi3 Inc as well as TechnoVista Ltd have focused on e-governance solutions, e-Government and Dohatec displayed its Voter Registration Enrolment and Multi Biometric Duplicate Detection System.
   The participating universities are the American International University of Bangladesh, Daffodil University, and United International University.
   Besides displaying products, a number of seminars, workshops and roundtables on the contemporary issues have been organised by the host at the fair venue.
   On an average, 600 visitors visit the exhibition between 9:00am and 8:00pm, said the BASIS.
   Local government and rural development minister Syed Ashraful Islam is expected to take part as the chief guest at the exposition concluding ceremony, slated for 2:30pm today. But the exhibition will continue till 8:00pm as usual, Nurul Alam said.

The US economy contracted at a 3.8 per cent pace in the fourth quarter of 2008, the worst performance since 1982, government data showed Friday.
   The decline marked a sharp downward acceleration in economic activity after a 0.5 per cent drop in the third quarter.
   But the figure was not as bad as feared, with analysts on average predicting a 5.5 per cent annualised drop in gross domestic product.
   Still, analysts took little comfort in the data, which was skewed by a high rate of inventories, suggesting business were surprised by the depth of the downturn and may have to cut production further in 2009.
   ‘The headline GDP figure was better than expected but this is very much an illusion supported by an unexpected increase in business inventories,’ said Sal Guatieri, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets.
   Guatieri said that the milder-than-expected fourth-quarter drop could mean an even steeper decline in the first quarter of 2009.
   ‘We were running with a forecast of down 4.3 per cent (in the first quarter) but we will likely revise that lower,’ he said.
   The world’s biggest economy has been in recession since December 2007, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, a private research group accepted as the arbiter of business cycles, even though up to now the economy had not shown two consecutive quarters of decline.
   Over all of 2008, the US economy grew 1.3 per cent, with total output of goods and services of $14.26 trillion.
   The fourth-quarter figure was not as weak as expected, with inventory stockpiling by businesses adding to activity. Excluding that, the so-called final demand for goods and services decreased at a 5.1 per cent rate.
   Government expenditures grew at a 5.8 per cent rate, another positive contributor.
   But the real estate sector remained a black hole, with investment in residential structures plunging 19.1 per cent.
   ‘The headline wasn’t as bad as feared but the details were pretty terrible,’ said Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James & Associates.
   ‘This is a much more severe global downturn that had been anticipated.’
   Ian Shepherdson, chief US economist at High Frequency Economics, said, ‘We are not comforted’ by the report.
   He said consumer spending, the main driver of activity, showed a 3.5 per cent drop and that business spending on equipment and software down a massive 27.8 per cent, the biggest drop in 50 years.
   ‘The big mystery, though, is the $6.2 billion rise in inventories, which bears no resemblance to the monthly numbers,’ he said. ‘It makes us more bearish for the first quarter because this rise has to reverse in some size.’

Bee farmers in Sirajganj are in hardship as the production of honey this season has been drastically decreased due to continuous foggy weather.
   Every farmer had to loose a good number of ‘queen bees’ as they had died after having a little production of honey due to shivering cold.
   According to the bee farmers, the land of Sirajganj is much suitable for mustard yield. The yellow flowers in the mustard field usually attract the bees to collect honey.
   A good number of farmers from Khulna and Jessore come in the district and set up their artificial honey-combs in wooden hives by the side of mustard fields. They usually spend at least two to three months here until the yellow mustard flowers turn dark red.
   Sree Sunil Devanath, a bee farmer from Khulna, who set up at least 20 boxes at village Salop under Ullapara upazila in Sirajganj, told New Age on Monday, ‘I got about 45kg honey from each box last year, but this season we have got less than the half due to the after-effect of fog. Besides, my 30 queen bees have already died from heavy cold’.
   He added, ‘Bee farming is one of the profitable businesses in our country, but our government is yet to pay attention to this sector.’
   Sunil further said, ‘As mustard grows here in plenty, many unemployed youths can easily be involved with this trade if they can mange a little grant from the government or non governmental organisations. With a little monetary help, we can survive even in unfavourable weather.’

At the World Social Forum in Brazil, anti-globalisationists are not only eschewing capitalism – they are also rejecting the currencies that go with it.
   Some of the 100,000 participants in this sprawling event in the northern city of Belem have adopted an alternative money, the ‘Amazonida’, as a substitute for the dollar, Brazil’s own reai, or credit cards.
   ‘I want to show that other monies are possible and we’re not condemned to use just Visa or Mastercard,’ said Joao Bosco da Rocha, a Brazilian social worker.
   He was one of several people exchanging Brazilian reais for Amazonidas in a little ‘Solidarity Bank’ set up on the university campus acting as the nucleus of the forum.
   In front of him another customer, Claudia Leite, explained as she received a handful of notes printed with Brazilian flora and fauna: ‘I believe in another economy, a fairer form of trade.’
   In Belem, the Amazonidas were only valid at forum stands, being used to purchase food, handicrafts, t-shirts and other souvenirs on sale.
   Sandra Magalhaes, the head of the bank distributing the money, said the Amazonidas were exchanged one-for-one with the reais, and there were 30,000 of them (13,000 dollars) in circulation at the forum.
   ‘Here, in the forum the social money has a symbolic value. But in some communities, these currencies are very important,’ she said.
   Magalhaes explained that alternative monies were being used in some small villages in parts of Brazil, with 38 banks printing and offering their own notes.
   She herself worked for a bank named Palmas, in the northeastern city of Fortaleza, and which offered ‘Palmas’ notes to the 32,000 local residents.

Tata Motors Ltd, India’s top vehicle maker, missed forecasts with a 2.63 billion rupee ($54 million) loss for the December quarter, which it said included a foreign exchange loss of 2.27 billion.
   Net sales dropped to 47.59 billion rupees from 72.52 billion.
   A Reuters poll had estimated net profit of 761.6 million rupees on sales of 51.2 billion rupees. The company had reported a 4.99 billion rupee quarterly profit a year earlier. Vehicle makers have been hit by high raw material costs and a credit squeeze that sapped demand.
   Tata Motors, which controls about 60 per cent of the world’s fifth-biggest truck and bus market, bought Ford Motor Co’s Jaguar and Land Rover brands for $2.3 billion last year. Shares in Tata Motors, worth nearly $1.2 billion, fell 54 per cent in the December quarter, more than double the drop on the benchmark index.

Croatia, hard hit by the global financial crisis, has entered into recession following an economic contraction in the second half of 2008, independent analysts said Friday.
   Figures showed gross domestic product fell 0.5 per cent in the third quarter of 2008 compared with the previous quarter, said the Economic Institute Zagreb, predicting a similar trend in the final quarter.
   The institute ‘therefore.... estimates that the Croatian economy has already entered into a recession’ based on a survey it conducted, the organisation said in a statement.
   ‘The projections foresee that negative trends will continue in 2009 in which it is expected that gross domestic product will drop by 1.4 per cent,’ it added.
   Croatian authorities are yet to issue economic growth data for the whole of 2008, but downgraded forecasts to about 2.0 per cent from a pre-crisis estimate of 3.3 per cent.
   The institute’s analysts warned Croatia could face difficulties refinancing debts if the impact of the crisis worsens in the ex-Yugolsav republic.

The Dubai-based Emirates Airline will step up its presence in Bangladesh with the introduction of three additional flights per week to Dhaka, starting on February 1, said a news release.
   The additional services wil1 bring Emirates’ weekly operation to 17 flights and add over 800 seats per week on the Dubai–Dhaka route (one direction). Operated by an A330–200 aircraft in a two-class configuration of 27 business and 251 economy class seats EK586 will depart Dubai at 10:15hrs every Monday, Wednesday and Sunday and touch down at Zia International Airport at 16:30hrs.
   Return flight EK587 will take off from Dhaka at 18:30hrs on the same day and arrive at the airline’s new home — Emirates Terminal 3, the Dubai International Airport — at 21:50 hrs.
   The Emirates currently operates double-daily services between Dhaka and Dubai. These flights facilitate travel for half a million Bangladeshis that reside in the UAE as well as offer seamless connections to Bangladeshis living in Europe and North America, the release added.

Suzlon Energy posted a third-quarter loss as it was hit by foreign exchange losses and payments to replace faulty equipment but forecast a recovery in 2010.
   The company, the world’s fifth largest turbine maker which dominates the Indian wind generation market, reported a consolidated net loss for the three months to December of 589.7 million rupees ($12m).
   It posted a profit of 1.52 million rupees in the same period a year earlier.
   ‘The long-term fundamentals of the wind industry remain strong. We see an upswing in the industry’s growth from 2010,’ Suzlon chairman Tulsi Tanti said in a statement.
   But the wind energy sector was ‘likely to witness subdued growth rates in the coming (financial) year,’ he said, as the global credit crunch undermined sales growth.
   Total revenues more than doubled to 68.93 billion rupees from 31.7 billion rupees, the company reported. The consolidated figures incorporated its Belgian unit Hansen and German wind energy arm REpower Systems.

High-tech giants NEC and Hitachi said Friday they were cutting up to 27,000 jobs as Japan Inc buckles under the strain of the global economic crisis.
   NEC Corp said it was slashing 20,000 jobs worldwide by March 2010 – half of the regular workers – as it sinks deeper into the red. About 40 per cent will be in Japan and the rest overseas, NEC president Kaoru Yano told a press conference.
   Hitachi Ltd said it would shed up to 7,000 jobs as it forecast a net loss of 700 billion yen ($7.8b) in the current financial year to March. It will try to move full-time workers around within the company to minimise job losses, company president Kazuo Furukawa said.
   ‘We will take various measures but may not be able to avoid cutting some regular workers,’ he said.
   NEC announced the job losses after saying it expects a net loss of 290 billion yen ($3.2b) in the year to March as recessions in major economies from Japan to Europe and the United States hammer demand.
   ‘It is regrettable that we have to announce such a big downgrade,’ Yano said. ‘We must cut waste.’
   Computer maker Fujitsu Ltd. said its net losses ballooned to 36.1 billion yen ($403m) in the nine months to December, and forecast it would end the year to March in the red.
   ‘I have absolutely no confidence in the fiscal year 2009,’ Fujitsu chief financial officer Kazuhiko Kato told reporters. ‘I have no clue what the outlook will be.’
   Japan is in the midst of its first recession in seven years as the global slowdown saps demand overseas for cars, computers, cameras and other key exports.
   A slew of gloomy economic data released Friday suggested the recession is deepening, with factory output falling a record 9.6 percent in December.
   Japanese companies have also been hit hard by a strong yen, which recently soared to a 13-year high against the dollar.
   There was more bad news from the car industry as Honda Motor Co reported that its net profit dived 89 per cent to 20.24 billion yen in the fiscal third quarter as car sales slumped.
   All Nippon Airways meanwhile said it expects an annual net loss of nine billion yen – its first in six years – as travel to North America and Europe declines due to the global economic crisis.
   There was also fresh misery in the banking sector as Mizuho Financial Group posted a net loss of 50.55 billion yen in the nine months to December due to the global financial crisis. Mizuho has been badly hit by financial market turmoil and losses on toxic mortgage-backed securities. A year earlier it had made a net profit of 393.03 billion yen.
   The group downgraded its outlook but still hopes to end the current financial year to March in the black. It expects a net profit of 100 billion yen, down from an earlier projection of 250 billion yen.
   ‘The dislocation of the global financial markets stemming from US subprime issues has worsened with the failure of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 and has caused an economic downturn on a global scale,’ it said in a statement.
   ‘As a result, the economic situation in and outside of Japan has been deteriorating rapidly.’

Indonesian finance ministry on Friday launched Islamic bond known as Sukuk for retail investors with three-year maturity as an effort to plug budget deficit of 2.5 per cent of the GDP this year, director general for Treasury of the ministry Rahmat Waluyanto said in Jakarta.
   The director said the offering of the bonds would start from January 30 to February 20 with yield 12 per cent per year.
   ‘Today we launch Sukuk with serial number of 001,’ said Waluyanto during the launching at his office in Jakarta.
   The amount of the bonds would depend on how much the market can observe, Waluyanto has said.
   Director of Tri Megah Security Rosinu Suesei said that the market potentially to observe up to 4.5 trillion rupiah ($409m).
   The US stimulus package plan is predicted to revive appetite of investors on assets at the emerging market, including Indonesia.
   The authorities at the world’s most populous Muslim nation expect the Islamic financial market and official creditors to play a much significant role in financing its budget deficit in 2009 than in previous years.
   The country’s Islamic financial market has largely left far behind its neighboring countries such as Malaysia and Singapore due in part to regulatory and tax issues. But, the government has stepped up efforts in recent months to address the issues.

The Japan International Cooperation Agency in association with the Export Promotion Bureau organised a seminar on export diversification at the BRAC Centre Inn at Mohakhali in Dhaka on Thursday.
   Feroz Ahmed, commerce secretary, attended the seminar as chief guest, said a press release. Masayuki Inoue, Japanese ambassador to Bangladesh, was present as special guest. JICA chief representative Nobuko Suzuki Kavashima also attended the seminar. JICA chief representative urged the Bangladesh government to promote the action programmes for both public and public sectors to cope with the current competitive economy.

World oil prices rose in Asian trade on Friday after the OPEC cartel said it would consider more output cuts to bolster a market faced with tumbling energy demand during the global economic slump.
   Worries sparked by talks of a labour union strike at US oil refineries also helped push prices higher, analysts said.
   In afternoon trade, New York’s main futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in March, was up 16 cents to $41.60 a barrel.
   Brent North Sea crude for March delivery rose 18 cents to $45.58.
   ‘One factor that has supported oil pricing is the production cuts made by OPEC,’ said Victor Shum, an analyst with energy consultancy Purvin and Gertz in Singapore, referring to the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
   ‘So despite all the bad economic news that continue to inundate the market oil pricing has stabilised in the low 40s level.’
   OPEC members however need an oil price above $50 to make exports worthwhile, the head of the cartel said Thursday, adding that more production cuts were possible later this year.
   ‘We are not happy with 40, even 50 dollars a barrel,’ OPEC secretary general Abdalla Salem El-Badri told a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
   Even $50 did not guarantee a ‘decent income for our countries,’ he said, adding OPEC will not hesitate to make further reductions.
   OPEC, which pumps 40 per cent of the world’s oil, late last year announced output reductions totalling 4.2 million barrels per day in an attempt to defend prices.

Chinese premier Wen Jiabao sought Friday to boost economic cooperation with the European Union to confront the global downturn, two months after Beijing cancelled a summit with the EU over Tibet.
   In talks with top EU officials in Brussels, Wen’s first visit in five years, his delegation affirmed that China was facing some of the same problems as the 27-nation bloc.
   ‘We have spoken about the economic and financial crisis that we must confront together,’ EU external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said after a first round of talks.
   ‘They are also facing great challenges, like unemployment. And they want to work in concert with us.’
   In Berlin, Wen and German chancellor Angela Merkel agreed Thursday that protectionism must not be the answer to economic woes and pledged closer coordination on economic, trade and monetary policy to fight the slump.
   European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso and his team are expected to repeat Merkel’s message and urge cooperation especially in trade matters.
   ‘One of the key messages is the link between the financial crisis and trade, and the importance of maintaining open markets during this financial crisis,’ a commission official said.
   ‘The crisis should not lead us to close down markets, to try to salvage things unilaterally,’ he said.
   Ferrero-Waldner said she had also discussed international issues like ‘the Middle East, North Korea, and Taiwan and Tibet,’ with the Chinese delegation.
   On the sensitive issue of Tibet, she said that ‘the door is not closed’ between Beijing and the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, whom China views as a separatist.
   But she noted: ‘There are still wide differences between the Dalai Lama and his envoys and the Chinese.’
   Wen’s is the first European trip by a senior Chinese official since Beijing cancelled a summit with the EU in December to protest against French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s decision to meet the Dalai Lama.
   France held the rotating EU presidency at the time.
   EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said after his talks with Wen that the possibility of a new summit ‘is implicit in all the conversations we had.’
   ‘I will be going to China soon and we will continue the conversations there,’ Solana told reporters.
   ‘The fact that he came to Brussels is a very good sign... for deepening the relationship between EU and China,’ the bloc’s top diplomat said.
   EU officials insist that human rights issues will again be raised.
   ‘It is very important that the Chinese party understands. We are very attached to this political dialogue on all issues, including those where we do not always share the same views,’ one said, on condition of anonymity.
   Officials acknowledge privately that the summit cancellation was uniquely in retaliation for Sarkozy’s meeting with the Dalai Lama and that China is keen to continue dialogue.
   Czech prime minister Mirek Topolanek, whose country holds the EU presidency, was due to hold talks later Friday with Wen and was expected to urge him to reconsider the summit cancellation.
   The EU will also encourage China, a major world polluter, to join its efforts to fight global warming ahead of key climate change talks in Copenhagen late this year.
   ‘China is the world’s biggest emitter of CO2 gases right now, and we need them onboard for a solution,’ the commission official said.
   ‘We want to see emerging economies such as China of course, but also India, Brazil and others, to be part of the solution for the post-Kyoto period’ after 2012, he said.
   The Chinese delegation is also due to ink a raft of agreements on subjects ranging from counterfeiting and piracy, to illegal logging, mine safety and civil aviation.

Japan announced a triple slump in key economic data Friday and said there was no end in sight to the bad news, as some of the country’s most high-profile companies announced or forecast massive losses.
   The data echoed gloomy reports on the health of the economy in the United States, where President Barack Obama took aim at what he called the ‘shameful’ bonuses given to Wall Street bankers during the financial crisis.
   Japan, the world’s second-largest economy after the United States, said industrial output, consumer spending and employment were all sharply down.
   December’s 9.6 per cent drop in industrial output from the previous month was the steepest such decline on record, raising fears Japan’s economy suffered its biggest contraction in decades in the fourth quarter of 2008.
   ‘The problem is very serious,’ economics minister Kaoru Yosano said. ‘As to when the economy will bottom out, it is impossible to predict at this time as the problem is not only domestic but global.’
   Japan’s unemployment rate jumped to 4.4 per cent in December, the country’s highest rate in three years, while household spending tumbled 4.6 per cent as consumers tightened their belts.
   Analysts say Japan’s economy now looks set to log its worst quarter since the oil crisis in 1974.
   News of the global slowdown was no surprise to Japanese companies, which announced a raft of gloomy earnings data on Friday that underlined the severity of the crisis facing Asia’s largest economy.
   Hitachi forecast a loss of $7.8 billion for the fiscal year ending in March and announced it would cut up to 7,000 jobs, while electronics giant NEC said it expected to lose $3.2 billion.
   All Nippon Airways, Japan’s second-biggest airline, said it now also expected a loss for the current fiscal year. Honda Motor said net profit in the fiscal third quarter was down 89 per cent.
   The country’s second-largest bank, Mizuho Financial Group, announced it lost $565 million in the nine months to December.
   ‘The economic situation in and outside of Japan has been deteriorating rapidly,’ Mizhuo said in a statement.

British prime minister Gordon Brown set out Friday his agenda for the G20 crisis summit in London, saying he would push for a new global financial architecture to prevent future turmoil.
   Laying out his priorities for the meeting, which is a follow up to a crisis summit in November, he emphasised the need for beefed up global institutions and international coordination that reflected the inter-connected world.
   ‘We have a global financial system, but until now no global coordination or supervision, only national supervisors,’ he told reporters in a joint press conference with UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon.
   ‘We have to ensure therefore that all major changes are agreed for our financial system as a matter of urgency over the next few weeks at the G20 summit in April,’ he added.
   The priorities would be ‘an early warning system of risk on any continent in the world economy’, as well as replacing ‘the patchwork of current regulation’. He said he would also push for an agreement on ‘international standards of transparency and disclosure’ for financial institutions and products.

Using protectionist measures to get stalled economies back on track is a ‘necessary evil’ but they must be temporary and agreed with partners, French economy minister Christine Lagarde said on Friday.
   Asked by radio BFM about provisions in US president Barack Obama’s stimulus package to require use of American-made steel in infrastructure projects, Lagarde said ‘protectionism is a necessary evil’.
   The ‘Buy American’ provisions in the $819-billion package have been noted by several countries, not the least by US neighbour and North American Free Trade Agreement partner Canada, which has voiced concerns about protectionism.
   Lagarde told the radio station that there needed to be international cooperation on such measures ‘which are bad in themselves but which are also perhaps necessary.’
   Stimulus packages to combat the deepening recession in Europe and the United States are funded by taxpayer money and so governments must therefore ensure that they are in the taxpayer’s interest, she added.

The South Asian Federation of Accountants, which was received the status of SAARC apex body in 2002 to coordinate the accounting profession from the SAARC member countries, has awarded BURO Bangladesh for the best presented accounts in the category of NGO.
   The award was given on the basis of evaluation of BURO’s audited annual report for the year 2007, a news release said.
   Md Sirajul Islam, programme director of BURO Bangladesh, received the award at a ceremony held on recently at Hyderabad in India.

The Shippers’ Council of Bangladesh held its 27th annual general meeting at Dilkusha in the capital on Wednesday.
   Mahabub Ali, chairman of the council, chaired the meeting, a news release said.
   The meeting reviewed the activities and performances of the council during the last one year which include measures taken for enhancing its services to the shippers/exporters.

Every morning Puapan Roong Raeng rises just after midnight to start work, tapping the trunks of the 1,000 rubber trees at his farm in southern Thailand.
   Donning his head torch, he scores the bark and watches the latex drip into the hanging coconut shells, which he returns to collect at dawn.
   The early start beats the heat of the day and ensures the precious white liquid remains free-flowing.
   But such arduous work has reaped little reward for Thailand’s rubber farmers in recent months, with tumbling commodity prices dramatically slashing Puapan’s family income to just six dollars per day.
   While a kilogramme (2.2 pounds) of rubber – which goes to make one sheet – fetched $3.25 in July 2008, the benchmark rubber price was just $1.55 on January 20.
   The rubber industry has suffered in recent months from falling oil prices which have made synthetic rubber more competitive.
   Fears of a global recession and the resulting sluggish demand for cars have led the Singapore-based International Rubber Study Group to predict that prices could fall up to five per cent further in 2009.
   ‘We have a problem because food, everything, the price is going up, but the price of rubber sheets is very, very low, about 30 baht and coming down every day,’ said Puapan’s wife, Peeya.
   In early January the family were receiving just 37 baht ($1.06) per kilogramme of rubber they produced, though this had crept up to an average of 48 baht nationwide by January 29.
   ‘Now we don’t eat out and we travel by motorbike instead of using the pickup truck. We’re cutting back on electricity and water,’ said Peeya.
   In this small-scale operation of just four hectares (about ten acres) of rubber trees on the Kanlaya farm in southern Thailand, there are no employees to lay them off or margins to cut in the lean times as business is a family affair.
   Each morning just after dawn, Puapan and Peeya, both 30, take the latex to her parents’ house where, with Peeya’s mother Klan Tongdang, they mix it with vinegar and wait for it to set into a rubbery consistency.
   The mixture is then passed through a mangle to form sheets that are hung to dry for three days. These sheets are then taken to a broker in nearby Phattalung town who sells it to dealers representing factories.
   About 85 per cent of Thailand’s natural rubber goes into making tyres, while the rest makes mostly rubber gloves, shoe soles and furniture.
   Rangsit Feuangpian, who runs a tyre shop in the southern Thai town of Trang, said he had recently been forced to cut his wholesale orders by 20 per cent.
   ‘In the past we ordered extra stock but now we just order for demand – we will not order it like in the past,’ Rangsit said.
   Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia supply about 70 per cent of the world’s rubber and are meeting in February to discuss cutting exports by up to a fifth to shore up prices.
   Somchai Charnarongkul, who directs the government’s rubber policy, said it was not currently possible to control the volume of rubber on the market, which contributes to price volatility.
   But, he said, a planned reserve could remedy this situation.
   ‘By stockpiling it, the farmers can continue their tapping but the product will not flood the market,’ he said.
   On Wednesday, Thailand’s cabinet approved a state loan to allow farmers’ cooperatives registered with the government to stockpile 200,000 tonnes of rubber from February.
   The eight-billion-baht ($229m) loan will allow farmers to hold back about eight per cent of the rubber they produce for export and release it according to demand to help stabilise prices.
   The kingdom exports on average about 2.5 million tonnes of rubber annually, and sold 2.2 million tonnes in the first nine months of 2008, according to the Thai Rubber Association.
   The one-year reserve project aims to stabilise the rubber price at around two dollars, or 70 baht, per kilogramme, said Somchai, who is director of agriculture at Bangkok’s Kasetsaert University.
   An agriculture ministry official, who did not want to be named, said authorities hoped to stabilise the price by the end of the year, but he added the move should have an immediate and positive effect on market sentiment.
   Rubber farmers would be happy with a guaranteed price of 50 baht a kilogramme, Peeya said.
   Until the price-stabilising reserve becomes a reality, however, Peeya, Puapan, Pantiya and their extended family must tighten their belts even further as they try to ride out the economic storm.
   ‘It makes me stressed sometimes but I try to look at the bright side,’ said Peeya. ‘We’re lucky we don’t have debt.’