House prices around the world dropped further in the first quarter of 2009 as the global recession worsened, with Latvia seeing the largest falls.
   Out of 32 countries studied, 27 saw price falls over the year to the end of March 2009, property researchers the Global Property Guide said.
   Apartment prices in the Latvian capital Riga fell 50 percent over the year.
   The guide uses price changes after inflation to try to give a realistic picture of the property market.
   Latvia is deep in recession - its economy contracted by 18 percent in the first quarter of 2009 compared with the same period a year earlier.
   The second biggest fall was seen in Dubai, where prices were down 35 percent over the year.
   It indicates the extent to which Dubai’s recent property boom has come to an end in the face of the worldwide recession.
   Prices had shot up by 59.7 percent the previous year.
   There were some countries where prices are rising. House prices in Switzerland are 4.3 percent higher than a year earlier. Reduced interest rates and a surge in the number of foreign residents helped keep property demand stable, Global Property Guide said.
   House prices in Thailand, Austria and Israel also bounced back in the first quarter.

The prices of spices increased further in the city markets in the past week while that of flour and fish showed a declining trend.
   Garlic became costlier by around 50 per cent in a month with fine grade single-cell local variety sold per kilogram on Friday at Tk 70. Inferior grade multi-cell garlic was sold at Tk 36.
   Garlic was sold at between Tk 24 and Tk 45 a month ago and Tk 32 and Tk 65 a week back.
   Ginger also became costlier by around 30 per cent in a month with fine-grade imported ones sold per kilogram at Tk 95 and local verity at Tk 60.
   ‘Local harvests of garlic and ginger were not good this year. Moreover, tight supplies from importers are pushing up prices,’ said Bishwadip Das, a Shyambazar-based spice wholesaler.
   One importer, based in Shyambazar, the largest wholesale market for perishables in the capital, said ginger and garlic prices were increasing at import sources.
   Estimates are there that Bangladesh consumes nearly half a million tonnes of ginger and garlic. Local productions meet less than half of that and rest are sourced from China, India and Indonesia.
   Vegetables prices did not see any sharp increase in the week although potato price, pushed up in the previous few weeks, remained unusually high.
   At Jatrabari Bazar, white Holland variety of potato was sold per kilogram at Tk 24. The retail price of potato on Friday was almost double of it was a year ago as the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh recorded it between Tk 12 and Tk 13.
   Traders point out that as stocks of potato in cold storages this year remain much lower than estimated consumptions for round the year, so, price has been on the rise.
   Potato harvest was bad this year. Moreover, farmers across the country had cultivated less potato as bumper production in the previous year prized with difficulties in storing and no viable prices.
   At retails, rice prices remained somewhat stable in the week with coarse verities sold per kilogram at between Tk 22 and Tk 25 and fine verities at between Tk 30 and Tk 33.
   Retailed between Tk 19 and Tk 21 per kilogram, coarse flour, however, became cheaper by at least Tk 1, over the week. Traders said low cost of imported wheat was making impacts.
   Fish prices showed a declining trend as increased supply of hilsa was pushing down prices of its own and others also. At Nakhalpara Bazar on Friday, a medium-sized hilsa, weighing around 800-gram, sold at Tk 180 against Tk 220 a week back.
   Fish traders said, ahead of the catching season, huge hilshas were being caught in the Bay of Bengal and estuaries.
   Beef sold per kilogram at between Tk 220 and Tk 230 on Friday, while live broiler chicken at between Tk 120 and Tk 125 while eggs per dozen sold at Tk 84.
   Red lentils sold per kilogram at between Tk 88 and Tk 108, sugar at between Tk 38 and Tk 40, non-packed soybean at between Tk 80 and Tk 84 while bolted soybean per litre sold at between Tk 85 and Tk 87.

Turkish Airlines, the national flag carrier of Turkey, has a plan to introduce direct flight between Dhaka and Istanbul by the summer next year, according to the top official of the airlines.
   Talking to UNB, president and CEO of Turkish Airlines Dr Temel Kotil said he discussed the matter with commerce minister Faruk Khan who had been here to attend the Istanbul Trade Ministers summit on June 1.
   Dr Kotil said Turkish Airlines, one of the fastest growing airline companies of Europe, has put signature to the record opening of 24 new routes in 2006 and joined Star Alliance on April 1, 2008.
   He said the Turkish Airlines will open its route to Jakarta this year and Dhaka next year.
   In reply to a question, he said the new route between Dhaka and Istanbul would hopefully start before the next summer keeping in mind the next year’s pilgrimage to Makkah.
   To another question, Dr Kotil said primarily they would operate four flights a week and the frequency might be increased depending on the rush of the passengers.
   Turkish Airlines boss earlier told a press briefing at the Airlines office Thursday afternoon that they plan to buy 105 new aircraft in next seven years and focused expansion of new routes in Africa and
   Latin America where the Turkish government also expanding trade and investment.
   Replying to a question, Dr Kotil said despite global financial crisis the airline has increased its operations and there have not been any job cuts.
   He said Turkish Airlines, the fourth largest airline in Europe, has a fleet of 132 aircraft. It operates flights to 115 international destinations and 36 domestic routes.

Rajshahi Krishi Unnayan Bank has disbursed Taka 772.15 crore as loan for boosting rural economy as well as generating employment through enhancing agricultural and non-agricultural production in Rajshahi division during the last 11 months of the current 2008-09 fiscal year till May 28 last.
   Side by side with the disbursement, the bank has also realised loan worth taka 429.92 crore including taka 144.65 crore from the classified and other outstanding loans during the same period.
   RAKUB managing director M Fazlul Haque told the news agency that the bank has set a target of disbursing Taka 900 crore as loan and recovery of Taka 685.80 crore including Taka 280 crore from the classified loan through its 364 branches in all the 16 districts under the division.
   He said the specialised bank has been disbursing the loan for crop production, fish cultivation, rearing livestock, purchasing agriculture and irrigation equipment, setting up small and medium scale industrial units and poverty alleviation.
   Besides, he said the loan disbursement sectors and sub sectors also included production of paddy, wheat, sugarcane, potato, ginger, turmeric, maize, tea and vegetables, establishment of poultry and dairy farms, fish culture and fish- hatchery, small and medium industry and agro-based industry along with purchasing modern agro- machinery.
   ‘We have disbursed Taka 1 crore among 63 poultry farmers only in Jamalganj village under Kalai upazila of Joypurhart district as the area has tremendous prospect for flourishing the poultry sector,’ Fazlul Haque said adding that the area has been declared as poultry village recently.
   Similarly, he said around 900 fish farming ponds have been found only in two villages- Bishia and Paroil under Raninagar upazila of Naogaon district and the villages were also declared as fisheries village.

The government should constitute an ‘Agricultural Price Commission’ for fixing prices of agricultural produces, former caretaker government adviser Akbar Ali Khan said on Friday.
   Khan urged the government to form an APC as soon as possible as he gave away medals to recipients of ‘Bangabandhu Krishi Padak’ at a discussion meeting held at the National Press Club.
   ‘Our neighbour India has one. Our government needs to follow that example because it’s always the cabinet ministers who fix the rice price or the manure selling price,’ Khan, a former cabinet secretary, said.
   ‘An Agricultural Price Commission’s basic functions include estimating and monitoring production expenses of commodities and fixing viable prices.
   ‘We must work together and enable our agriculture and agricultural economies graduate to the 21st century and reduce costs.
   ‘West Bengal has been able to cut costs already. We too must be able to do that or face an insurmountable challenge in the agriculture sector.
   ‘To do that, we must first make our farmers aware of the balanced use of manures and irrigation.’
   He stressed the need of introducing transparent agricultural administration, increased use of technology and technology expansion at the field level.

The National Garment Workers Federation has demanded special allocation for the garment workers in the upcoming national budget to help improve their living standard.
   Garment workers formed a human chain at Muktangon in the city on Friday and urged the government to ensure a specific announcement in the budget on their demands.
   The demands include introduction of full rationing for the garment workers jointly by the garment owners and government, special budgetary allocation for the food ministry to run rationing programme for garment workers, allocation for the health ministry to establish hospitals in Dhaka, Chittagong, Narayanganj, Gazipur and Ashulia for garments workers, allocation for the communication ministry to introduce transport service for them and ensuring housing facilities for the garment workers.
   Addressing a post-human chain rally, federation president Amirul Haq Amin said the government should implement their demands on urgent basis as the garment workers were playing significant role in the country’s economy.

Commerce minister Faruk Khan, who took part in the Trade Ministers Summit in Istanbul, has called upon the Turkish businessmen to evaluate ‘lucrative investment opportunities’ in Bangladesh.
   He told the leading English daily Today’s Zaman that Bangladesh was full of investment opportunities, mostly untouched, waiting to be utilised by profit-seeking entrepreneurs.
   Faruk particularly emphasised the incentives the Bangladesh government was offering to interested investors. Citing an example, he said the government had decided to dedicate a special economic zone to Turkish businessmen with incentives such as land delivery and cheap labour and energy.
   The commerce minister said Bangladesh had the cheapest labour cost in the world and that only a few other countries could match it in terms of energy costs in this industrial zone. He said a company might hire an unskilled worker for a monthly salary of $100-150 depending on the location.
   He said there was one more very lucrative advantage that an investor must consider — there were no legal barriers to foreign companies transferring profits to their home countries.
   Faruk praised Turkish industrialists as being highly skilled in virtually every sector and asked for investment in all fields, particularly pharmaceuticals, textiles and construction. He said any investment in the power generation sector would be welcomed.
   Trade volume between Bangladesh and Turkey is currently around $500 million a year and Dhaka enjoys the surplus.
   During the discussions Faruk held in Istanbul for last couple of days with the Turkish state officials including Turkish international trade minister, both sides agreed that the current trade volume has to increase to $1 billion within a short time.
   Bangladesh and Turkey are to sit for Joint Economic Commission meeting in Ankara in November when entire range of bilateral economic and trade matters will be reviewed and new ways of cooperation worked out.
   Turkey is now the 15th largest economy in the world and 6th largest in Europe. Turkish state minister for International Trade Zafer Caglayan told reporters, who came in Istanbul to cover the Turkey-World Trade Bridge 2009, that his country had focused on exploring new markets for trade and investment in Africa, Latin America, Central Asia and Middle East without turning back to Europe.
   He was optimistic that Turkey would come out of the negative impact of global economic crisis that would hit its export and employment sectors by next year. He said since the global recession was a global crisis; a global solution would have to be found out to overcome this crisis.
   Asked how LDCs could get benefit from a three-day business summit that ended in Istanbul on Friday, Zafer said Turkey once belonged to the LDC.

Huntsman-appointed agent Swiss Colours Bangladesh has organised a business seminar on innovations in textile processing recently.
   In the seminar, Huntsman held an open forum directly with their customers concerning their innovated new products and customer service, a news release said.
   To show the attributes of finished products using their dyes and chemicals, an international standard fashion show was arranged for the customers, the release said.

In 1909 French chemist Eugene Schueller concocted a safe dye for hair, calling it l’Aureale after a popular hair style of the moment in a city which was already a byword for style and fashion.
   On Thursday that business, now an empire, a top French brand and a leader in the world of cosmetics under the name of L’Oreal, celebrates 100 years of satisfying vanity and riding the long rise of spending on body care products.
   Since the early years when Schueller invented new recipes by night and delivered to hairdressers by bicycle by day, L’Oreal has survived through the Great Depression, two world wars and the growth of competition in ever-more prosperous economies.
   However, Schueller attracted controversy for having extreme right-wing connections before and after the occupation of France in World War II.
   The founding family has been in the news recently over acrimonious litigation between Liliane Bettencourt, Schueller’s daughter, and her own daughter Francoise Bettencourt-Myers. The daughter took court action to challenge gifts totalling nearly a billion euros ($1.42b) from the family fortune by her mother to a friend, a photographer.
   The Swiss food giant Nestle acquired 28.9 per cent of the group in 2004.
   But Liliane Bettencourt remains the top shareholder, making her one of the wealthiest women in the world with a fortune estimated by Forbes magazine in 2008 at $23 billion. She herself began working in the business at the age of 15, mixing cosmetics and labelling bottles of shampoo.
   L’Oreal is one of three top world groups in this market which, over 100 years, has reached down through the middle classes to new segments of working people in emerging economies. Personal body care is now a multinational business.
   The market for L’Oreal has expanded from ‘gay Paris’ in the early years to the globalised world of supermarkets and glamour: a story of the consumer society.
   The group, under its previous chief executive, Welshman Lindsay Owen-Jones, turned in an astonishing run of ever-rising profits: for 23 years running it raised profits by more than 10 per cent per year.
   The empire now constitutes one of the biggest family fortunes in France, but in its hundredth year it too is being tarnished by the effects of the global economic crisis.
   For the first time for many years, the group is closing some factories in Europe because the global economic crisis has hit profits.

Oil prices could strike 85 dollars per barrel by the end of 2009, as the global economy recovers and an energy shortage emerges, US investment bank Goldman Sachs forecast on Thursday.
    ‘We are raising our end-of-2009 price forecast (for New York crude) to 85 dollars per barrel from 65 dollars per barrel,’ Goldman Sachs said in a report.
   On Tuesday, New York’s main futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in July, had struck a seven-month peak of 69.05 dollars on the back of the weak dollar and global economic recovery hopes.
   ‘We continue to expect that a combination of demand stabilisation and OPEC production cuts will help draw inventories back to normal levels by the end of the third quarter,’ the bank added on Thursday.
   ‘This improvement in fundamentals (of supply and demand) will likely be reflected in ... higher prices.’
   Further ahead, Goldman predicted that prices could strike 95 dollars per barrel by the end of 2010.
   After plunging from record highs above 147 dollars last July, oil prices touched multi-year lows in December, at one point nearing 32 dollars a barrel.
   The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which pumps 40 percent of world oil, cut its production target three times late last year to stabilise slumping prices that ravaged the 12-nation cartel’s revenues.

The dollar weakened against the euro in Asian trade Friday ahead of key US jobs data expected to point to a budding recovery that may sap demand for the greenback as a safe haven currency.
   The euro firmed to 1.41 dollars in Tokyo afternoon trade from 1.41 in New York late Thursday. The US currency edged up to 96.79 yen from 96.61.
   Most analysts expect employers to have cut 520,000 jobs, down from 539,000 in April.
   But the unemployment rate is still expected to have jumped to 9.2 percent, its highest since 1983.
   Sentiment was lifted Thursday after new
   claims for US jobless benefits fell for a third consecutive week, a sign that layoffs have passed their peak.
   Meanwhile the euro was higher against the dollar and yen after the European Central Bank kept its interest rate unchanged at one percent and announced a new plan to shore up credit in European markets, dealers said.
   The euro gained to 137.37 yen from 136.98.
   Trichet also told a press conference that the
   bank’s plan to purchase 60 billion euros’ (85 billion dollars’) worth of low-risk covered bonds would begin next month and run until July 2010 ‘at the latest.’
   The dollar fell to 1.4447 Singapore dollars from 1.4452, to 1,244.80 South Korean won from 1,249.65, to 47.27 Philippine pesos from 47.39, to 32.57 Taiwan dollars from 32.67, and to 9,981.25 Indonesian rupiah from 10,152.
   The greenback stood at 34.17 Thai baht compared with 34.16.

No single technology will triumph in the pursuit of a ‘greener’ auto industry. Instead, the future will include a mix of cars powered by electricity, hydrogen fuel cells and bio fuels, according to the world’s biggest car makers.
   Gathered together at a hydrogen and fuel cells conference in Vancouver last week, car company executives said it was wrong to characterise their search for the low- or no-pollution vehicles of tomorrow as a battleground of technologies.
   ‘This is nonsense. This is not about picking some winner,’ said Andreas Truckenbrodt, chief executive of Automotive Fuel Cell Cooperation, a company set up by Daimler AG and Ford Motor Co to research fuel cells for vehicles.
   ‘All these technologies have their value,’ he said, painting a picture of an auto industry in which combustion engines will share the road with plug-in electric vehicles and cars running on hydrogen.
   Lawrence Burns, vice-president of research and development at General Motors Corp, said there was no one ‘silver bullet’ solution for weaning the auto industry off its dependence on petroleum.
   ‘We need a full portfolio of solutions as we transition from gasoline and diesel to renewables,’ Burns said, speaking shortly after the former Detroit giant filed for bankruptcy.
   Burns declined to comment on the filing other than to say that the ‘new’ GM ‘is about reinventing the automobile and the automobile business’.
   With a finite amount of government and private funding for research, and potentially rich rewards for the technology that achieves widespread acceptance, competition among developers is inevitable.
   The Obama administration fanned the debate last month when US energy secretary Steven Chu proposed a nearly two-thirds cut in government funding for research into hydrogen-powered cars in favour of supporting work on bio fuels and batteries.
   The hydrogen fuel-cell car was touted by former president George W Bush in 2003 as the pollution-free vehicle of the future that would help the United States reduce its dependence on foreign oil. But Chu believes its practical use is still 10 to 20 years away.
   Executives from GM, Toyota Motor Corp, Honda Motor Co and the Daimler-Ford venture, AFCC, disagree and peg 2015 as the date for commercialization of cars powered by fuel cells — devices that produce electricity from hydrogen using a chemical reaction.
   ‘I was very pleased that here were four auto companies all saying pretty much the same thing about the state of readiness of the technology,’ GM’s Burns said.
   Critics of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles say they will never be economically mass-produced and cite difficulties such as hydrogen production and storage, the high cost of the cars themselves and the massive cost of building a network of hydrogen fuelling stations.
   Carmakers acknowledge that hurdles remain but say that they are working hard to overcome them.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp is aiming at a shake-up of Citigroup Inc’s top management, including replacing chief executive Vikram Pandit, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.
   US officials have reached out to former US Bancorp Chief Executive Jerry Grundhofer, who recently joined Citigroup’s board, to see if he is interested in the top position at Citi, the paper said, citing people familiar with the matter.
   Under chairman Sheila Bair, the FDIC recently pressed a fellow regulator to lower the government’s confidential ranking of Citi’s health, the paper said, adding that such a move would let regulators control the company more tightly.
   Citigroup officials have argued that Bair is overstepping her authority, according to the paper.
   FDIC officials are particularly concerned about Citi’s lack of senior executives with experience in commercial banking, according to the paper.
   ‘The FDIC is our tertiary regulator,’ behind the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve, the paper quoted Citigroup Chief Financial Officer Ned Kelly as saying.
   ‘We went through a rigorous stress test process, the results of which were agreed to by appropriate regulatory agencies and clearly reflect the significant progress made by this management team over the last 15 months to turn Citi around,’ Citigroup chairman Richard Parsons said in a statement emailed to the newspaper and later to Reuters.
   Parsons said Citi has reduced its balance sheet by nearly 25 per cent and ‘riskier’ assets by over 50 per cent.
   ‘We have raised an unprecedented amount of capital, and, upon completion of the pending public exchange offer, Citi will be among the best-capitalized banks in the world,’ Parsons said.
   The FDIC did not immediately respond to a Reuters e-mail seeking comment on the newspaper report.

A five-day training course titled ‘Maintenance and adjustment of industrial sewing machine’ concluded on Wednesday at the Spectra Convention Centre in Dhaka.
   The Association for Overseas Technical Scholarship Japan organised the course implemented by Pegasus Sewing Machine, Japan and in co-operation with Pegasus Sewing Machine Singapore and its liaison Office in Dhaka, a news release said.
   Japanese ambassador Masayuki Inoue and Japan-Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Abdul Haque addressed the training programme among others. Forty participants from different garment industry of Dhaka, Savar and Gazipur attend the course.

Building Technology and Ideas Limited held its silver jubilee celebration in a city hotel recently.
   State minister for environment and forest Mostafizur Rahman was present on the occasion as chief guest, a news release said.
   BTI chairman CJ Haider, managing director Arshi Haider and senior officials of the company took part in the ceremony.
   Later, BTI executive director Yadat Hossain gave the welcome speech and Arshi Haider presented the keynote.
   BTI is the country’s first ever real estate company to receive ISO 9001:2000 for excellence in its line of business, the release added.

China said Friday it was considering taxing polluting businesses in a bid to improve the environment in the nation, one of the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases.
   ‘Collecting environmental taxes from (polluting) companies is one of the directions of China’s tax system reform,’ Zhang Lijun, deputy head of the environmental protection ministry, told reporters.
   ‘Several departments are currently working together to develop research on this issue, and when the conditions are right we will launch an environmental taxation system for polluting companies.’
   China is one of the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases along with the United States.
   It is the biggest producer and consumer of high-polluting coal globally and its appetite for the cheap fuel is growing as its economy expands.
   In 2006, the World Bank said that 16 out of 20 of the world’s worst polluted cities were in China.
   And a recent report by the state Xinhua news agency, citing a survey conducted in November last year in 320 cities, said the average air quality in two out of five Chinese cities ranged from ‘polluted’ to ‘hazardous’.
   Zhang said that 210 billion yuan ($31b) had been set aside for environmental protection in the four-trillion-yuan stimulus package allocated by the government to fight the global financial crisis.
   He added that in the first quarter of 2009, China’s emissions of sulphur dioxide, a liquid or gas produced in many industrial processes including the combustion of coal, dropped nearly five per cent year-on-year.
   But Zhang admitted the environmental situation in China was still grim.
   ‘Surface water pollution is still serious, the quality of coastal waters suffers from light pollution, some cities’ air pollution is still strong, and rural environmental problems are increasing,’ he said.

The tagline in ads flooding US airwaves is simple: General Motors’ bankruptcy filing ‘isn’t about going out of business — this is about getting down to business.’
   Cars barely get a passing glance in the images that flash across the screen as an invisible narrator assures viewers that ‘we’re not witnessing the end of the American car. We’re witnessing the rebirth of the American car.’
   There’s sunrise over a city skyline, plants sprouting out of the ground, a football flying through the air, a cheering crowd, lights coming on in a glistening factory and even boxing legend Mohammed Ali.
   It’s a clever and effective ad, which — along with the dedicated website it flags — is aimed at calming consumer fears and answering questions they have about GM’s future.
   ‘It’s a promise to do better going forward, that’s a brand play,’ said Jeremy Anwyl, president of the automotive research firm Edmunds.com.
   Whether GM succeeds in keeping its customers depends on how quickly it is able to emerge from bankruptcy protection. Speed is of the essence,’ he said in a telephone interview.
   Former GM chief Rick Wagoner warned Congress last fall that the company would likely end up being liquidated if it was forced into bankruptcy protection because consumers would not be willing to buy its cars.
   It turns out he was wrong.
   Chrysler dealers managed to sell more vehicles to retail customers in May than any other month so far this year despite the fact that it sought bankruptcy protection on April 30.
   And GM managed to increase its both its US and global market share even as its much-anticipated June 1 bankruptcy filing dominated headlines.
   ‘This gives us a lot of confidence that some of the negative issues we’ve had to deal with are behind us and have not affected our sales,’ GM sales analyst Mike DiGiovanni said in a conference call Tuesday discussing May sales results.
   ‘As we reinvent the company and move to become a leaner, more profitable, more customer focused company I think these positive sales results for May give us a good foundation to build on.’
   Some of those sales can be attributed to people who thought all the turmoil at GM and Chrysler meant they could get a better deal, said Jeff Schuster, an analyst with JD Power.
   It also helped that the Chrysler bankruptcy went so smoothly — Chrysler managed to get approval to sell its assets to a new company run by Italy’s Fiat in just 30 days — and that both automakers have the support of president Barack Obama.
   ‘In many case the uncertainty is more damaging than the actual bankruptcy announcement,’ Schuster told the AFP.
   ‘Now that there’s an understanding that this doesn’t mean the company will go away it has put a lot of consumers’ minds at ease and opened up their willingness to look at GM.’
   GM is bound to lose some market share as it sells or eliminates four of the eight brands it sells in the United States, Schuster said.
   But its has done a good job of improving its product portfolio over the last several years and has generated a good deal of buzz for the vehicles they have coming out.
   ‘They do have very competitive products they’re launching but they have more transitions to make,’ Schuster said.
   ‘They have to focus on the right product for the right brand.’
   The real question is how long it will take for auto sales to rebound.
   GM says it hopes to emerge from bankruptcy protection within 60 to 90 days as a new, leaner company able to break even with US sales of 10 million vehicles a year.
   May sales came in at a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 9.91 million units.