High rate of interest and excess liquidity in the banking system are seen as major concerns for the country’s fiscal policymakers.
   Patrik Brummer, chairman of the Brummer & Partners, raised the concern when he made his observation on Bangladesh economy with the New Age on Monday.
   He suggested the government and the Bangladesh Bank to remain alert about abnormal rise of inflation as he believes that the situation is now favorable to such rise.
   ‘Huge liquidity and high rate of interest create a critical condition,’ said Patrik, talking to New Age on the sideline of a discussion on entrepreneurship and private equity investment in Bangladesh.
   Brummer & Partners and UK-based Fund CDC arranged the discussion, at Hotel Sheraton on Monday night where leading entrepreneurs, businessmen, bankers and high government officials took part.
   Energy adviser Towfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury was the chief guest at the discussion, moderated by Muhammad A. (Rumee) Ali, chairman of BRAC Bank and managing director of the Brac Enterprises.
   Patrik Brummer said beside the $10 billion plus record reserve, banks in Bangladesh have huge excess liquidity while the capital market is capable of supplying adequate fund.
   The chief of Brummer- a Stockholm-based company, which deals $7 billion worth assets globally- said monitoring of inflation is very crucial in a situation like this.’
   The government and the central bank have many mechanisms to reduce rate of interest, said, Patrik, but he added that the rate cut would lead to increase of credit to the nonproductive sectors in absence of cautious measures.
   He recalled the bad practice of the US bankers who rooted the recent recession by pushing down the rate of interests even below the inflation rate. “We all saw how US people swam in cheaper debts that resulted in global recession.’
   Patrik said Bangladesh government would make proactive regulations for capital market, bring more transparency.
   Much awareness regarding equity funds have to be created in Bangladesh with persuasion of the government and industry, he said.
    Brummer launched it subsidiary-The Frontier Fund in Bangladesh one and half years ago with a commitment of $75 million investments in different industries.
   The company has equity investment in Globatt, an export-oriented battery manufacturing unit of Rahimafrooz Group and its retail superstore chain, Agora.
   ‘We have two in the list now, but the number will be at least 10 in the near future,’ he said
   Participated in the discussion the panelists pointed out that the barriers like family domination in companies and unwillingness in releasing stakes to equity partners prevent growth of equity funds.
   They suggested country-specified strategies and awareness campaign to educate companies that equity partners bring companies globalised label.
   Ahshan Khan Chowdhury of Pran-RFL Group, Nasim Manzur of Apexadelchi, Farzana Afroz of Samuda Chemical and Ayesha Aziz Khan of Summit group were among the panelists.

Businessmen representing US companies in Bangladesh Tuesday sought the government’s quick actions to restore an atmosphere conducive for investment by removing irritants and improving infrastructures.
   ‘Almost nine months have elapsed since the present government took over. We heard about a number of roadmaps, but we don’t see their journey began,’ the president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Bangladesh, Aftabul Islam, told a luncheon meeting of the organisation that was attended by an adviser to the prime minister.
   The chamber leader said that the government needs to take quick actions for smooth supply of power and energy, eliminate corruption, develop infrastructures, and ensure a better law and order situation for an investment friendly environment.
   Impartial law enforcement is required as economy and peace are interrelated, he said, asking the government now to start delivering its pledges made before and after the December 2008 elections for attaining the vision 2021.
   Aftabul said that the government must keep in mind that the main problem here has been the problem of implementation.
   ‘We have heard about mega plans for establishing Dhaka-Chittagong expressway, underground or over-ground monorails to get rid off traffic congestions; but no progress has been made to this end so far.’
   He, however, appreciated the government’s power management over the past months and its plans for future.
   HT Imam, the prime minister’s administration and establishment affairs adviser, responding to the chamber leader’s observation said that the government was enthusiastically working for creating an investment-friendly atmosphere.
   He said that the power sector has improved a lot since the Awami League-led coalition government assumed office. More projects are on the pipeline in both public and private sectors. But these infrastructure projects would take a little time to come through, he said.
   On law and order, the adviser said the government has been grappling with the situation. He mentioned the emergence of militants during the previous Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led alliance government and said the country has now been doing well in tackling militancy, a global menace, in comparison to the others.
   He admitted that the judicial system is still in a sluggish condition and there are efforts to overcome it. The adviser called upon all to work together to help improve the situation.
   The government has taken up schemes to restore discipline on the streets to get rid off the nagging tailbacks. He mentioned about introducing school buses and setting up of six short overpasses at city rail-crossings to ease the congestions.
   Replying to a question from the audience on the Better Business Forum, initiated by the previous army-backed government, Imam said that the government has been working on how to improve the public-private partnership. ‘May be, someday we will come up with something better than that of the forum.’
   The meeting was attended by members of the chamber and European and American diplomats.

Dhaka stocks Tuesday gained marginally after a quick-fire surge on the previous day on the back of a 1,673-per cent rise in the share prices of Grameenphone Ltd on its debut on the bourse.
   Share prices of Grameenphone, however, lost 3.49 per cent to close at Tk 171.10 each on Tuesday.
   The general index of Dhaka Stock Exchange gained 1.70 points, or 0.04 per cent, to close at 4,149.82, the index’s all-time high. On Monday, the bourse’s key index soared 764.88 points, or 22.61 per cent.
   The DSE20 index of blue chips advanced by 19.37 points, or 0.84 per cent, to finish at 2,335.39 on Tuesday.
   Of the total 234 issues traded on the DSE, 175 advanced and 59 declined.
   Turnover at the DSE increased to Tk 913.81 crore from the Monday’s Tk 738.04 crore.
   Grameenphone topped the turnover leaders with a total transaction of Tk 49.89 crore.
   Social Islami Bank, Jamuna Oil, Titas Gas, Beximco, Summit Alliance Port, AB Bank, Power Grid Company Bangladesh, Bextex, and First Lease Finance and Investment were the rest of the top 10 turnover leaders on the day.

Country’s first ever syndicated agricultural term loan facility of Tk 150 crore, arranged by the Citibank, NA, was delivered to Buro Bangladesh, a leading micro finance institution.
   The 5-year loan facility has been provided to support expansion of BURO’s micro-lending to the agriculture sector.
   The other banks, participated in the fund, are Agrani, Dutch-Bangla, Eastern, Janata, Mutual Trust, Prime, Pubali, Sonali, Southeast, Standard, City and United Commercial bank.
   Bangladesh Bank governor Dr Atiur Rahman handed over the fund to Buro at a function in the city Tuesday.
   Mamun Rashid, Managing Director and Citi Country Officer- Bangladesh said the syndicated agricultural loan, which would provide million of farmers with loans, was yet another milestone in bankers’ partnership with the microfinance sector.
   Zakir Hossain, Executive Director of BURO said, his organisation was committed to help farmers in ensuring food security of the country.

World oil prices fell slightly on Tuesday after recent gains which were spurred by a weak dollar and hopes of improved energy demand amid a global recovery, analysts said.
   New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for December delivery eased 29 cents to $78.61 a barrel.
   Brent North Sea crude for January delivery dipped 24 cents to $78.52 per barrel.
   Crude futures had climbed on Monday amid a weak dollar and rising demand expectations boosted by growth prospects, including in Japan, the world’s second largest economy.
   A lower greenback makes dollar-denominated commodities — like gold and crude oil — cheaper for buyers using stronger currencies. That tends to stimulate demand and prices.
   Crude was also boosted on Monday after data released Monday showed that the Japanese economy expanded 1.2 per cent in the July-September period. It was the second straight quarter of expansion.
   Meanwhile, OPEC president Jose Maria Botelho de Vasconcelos signalled that $75-80 oil was an adequate level to allow for a global economic recovery.
   ‘Seventy-five to 80 dollars a barrel is a good price... for the recovery of the world economy,’ de Vasconcelos, who is also Angola’s oil minister, said at a Gulf energy security conference in Abu Dhabi.

Sonar Bangla Insurance Ltd will be placed in ‘A’ category from ‘Z’ category with effect from today as the company reported disbursement of 10 per cent stock dividend for the year 2008. Dhaka Stock Exchange has requested the stockbrokers/dealers and merchant bankers not to provide loan facilities to purchase shares of Sonar Bangla Insurance Ltd for the first 30 trading days after change of categorisation as per SEC directives.
   
   Eastland Insurance
   Nazrul Islam, one of the sponsors/directors of the company, has reported his intention to sell 500 shares out of his total holdings of 13,970 shares of the company at prevailing market price through the stock exchange within next 30 working days.
   
   Saiham Textile
   Trading of the shares of the company will remain suspended today, as book closure will start from tomorrow.
   
   Monno Ceramic
   Normal trading of the shares of the company will resume today following the starting date of book-closure.
   
   Prime Textile
   Trading of the shares of the company will remain suspended today, as book closure will start from tomorrow.
   
   Monno Jutex
   Normal trading of the shares of the company will resume today following the starting date of book-closure.
   
   Savar Refractories
   Normal trading of the shares of the company will resume today following the starting date of book-closure.
   
   Meghna Pet Industries
   Trading of the shares of the company will remain suspended today, as book closure will start from tomorrow.
   
   Atlas Bangladesh
   Trading of the shares of the company will be allowed only in the spot market and block/odd lot transactions will also be settled as per spot settlement cycle with cum benefit from 18.11.09 to 22.11.09. Trading of the shares of the company will remain suspended on record date 23.11.09.
   Source: DSE

China and the United States on Tuesday pledged to resolve their lingering trade disputes and combat protectionism, as visiting US president Barack Obama called on Beijing to let the yuan rise.
   Comments by Obama and Chinese president Hu Jintao to reporters after their summit however gave no further specifics on how the two economic giants planned to defuse mounting trade rancour marked by a series of tit-for-tat actions.
   The two sides said in a joint statement that they ‘recognise the importance of open trade and investment to their domestic economies and to the global economy, and are committed to jointly fight protectionism’.
   Hu said they would ‘continue to have consultations on an equal footing to properly resolve economic and trade frictions in a joint effort to uphold the sound and steady growth of their business ties and trade.’
   In his comments, Obama raised the two countries’ central trade dispute — accusations that China keeps its currency undervalued to boost exports at the expense of those of other countries — but tread softly.
   ‘I was pleased to note the Chinese commitment, made in past statements, to move toward a more market-oriented exchange rate over time,’ Obama said as Hu looked on.
   ‘I emphasised in our discussions, as have others in the region, that doing so based on economic fundamentals would make an essential contribution to the global (economic) rebalancing effort.’
   China has come under increasing pressure to loosen its grip on the yuan, with Asia-Pacific finance ministers last week complaining about it at a regional summit in Singapore.
   International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, during a visit to Beijing on Tuesday, urged China to let the yuan rise ‘sooner rather than later’, saying it would benefit both the Chinese and global economies.
   On the yuan, Hu noted merely that ‘the two sides reiterated that they will continue to increase dialogue and cooperation in macroeconomic and financial policies.’
   The world’s number-one and number-three economies have swapped a series of accusations of dumping and other unfair trade practices since September, when the Obama administration announced it would slap duties on Chinese-made tyres.
   Chinese commerce minister Chen Deming raised the temperature on Friday at the Asia-Pacific summit in Singapore, lashing out at what he called an ‘unprecedented’ number of trade measures aimed at China this year.
   ‘These measures have bad and profound implications for free international trade,’ Chen told reporters, while not specifically naming the United States.
   In what appeared to be a reference to such disputes, Hu said, ‘I stressed to President Obama that under the current circumstances, our two countries need to more strongly oppose and reject protectionism in all its manifestations.’
   Obama praised China for its four-trillion-yuan ($585b) economic stimulus plan, which he said had helped the global recovery effort.

General Motors Co said on Monday it lost $1.2 billion in a bankruptcy-shortened third quarter, but it vowed a quick repayment of $8 billion owed to the United States and Canada.
   The results gave analysts and potential investors the first look at GM’s books for the period from July 10, when the top US automaker emerged from a fast-track sale out of a bankruptcy engineered and financed by the Obama administration, through the end of the third quarter.
   Revenue for the entire third quarter dropped 26 per cent to $28 billion.
   Analysts said the results underscored the pressure facing the automaker even after a $50-billion financing package that has made the US government a 61-per cent owner.
   ‘They are still on life support as a business and they are going to continue to be,’ said Mirko Mikelic, a portfolio manager at Fifth Third Bank in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
   Chief executive Fritz Henderson said the results showed GM has ‘significantly more work to do’ despite topping its own targets for market share and sales as it came out of bankruptcy.
   ‘The first step in the turnaround is to stop the bleeding, stop shrinking as we get to the foundation,’ Henderson told financial analysts on a conference call.
   The ‘new GM’ has cut 34,000 jobs globally from the start of the year, eliminated $78 billion of debt and built up a cash hoard of almost $43 billion thanks to its bailout. It has also cut its US inventories of unsold vehicles in half.
   Henderson’s predecessor, Rick Wagoner, was asked to step down by the White House after resisting plans for a bankruptcy that GM had long argued would hurt consumer confidence.
   Bolstered by its bailout, GM ended September with almost $43 billion in cash compared with $14 billion a year earlier.
   That included $17.4 billion in a special account created with bankruptcy financing provided by the US government. GM said it has allocated $8.1 billion from that taxpayer-funded account to pay off its government debt.
   ‘This is basically them taking money from one pocket and putting it in the other,’ said Brad Coulter, an automotive restructuring adviser at O’Keefe & Associates.
   ‘But they need to keep showing that they are stabilizing to get consumers back in showrooms. They also need to show investors and creditors that the business has stabilized and it’s OK to invest in the auto supply base,’ he said.
   GM’s results were not prepared according to generally accepted accounting principles and were not comparable to past results. GM has lost $88 billion since 2005.
   In the United States, where the ‘cash for clunkers’ sales incentives helped lift a sagging market, GM’s US market share dropped to 19.5 per cent from 24.3 per cent a year earlier.
   Aaron Bragman, an analyst with IHS Global Insight, called the GM results ‘surprising and a little disappointing.’
   ‘The bankruptcy was effective in some ways; the debt is a lot less; the structural costs are dramatically less; but why are they still turning in a loss?’ Bragman said. ‘We expected better.’
   GM forecast industrywide sales in its home market would recover to about 11.5 million vehicles in 2010, up from 10.5 million this year. It declined to say how it would fare in a market of that size. Its North American operations lost $651 million in the shortened third quarter.
   ‘When you are living on the edge of a cliff, which a company in bankruptcy and coming out of bankruptcy clearly is doing, it is all about being around for when the economy is thriving again,’ said Van Conway, principal at Detroit-based restructuring specialist firm Conway Mackenzie.

Indian energy giant Reliance Industries will launch an ‘aggressive’ oil and gas exploration campaign over the next three years, its chairman Mukesh Ambani told shareholders on Tuesday.
   ‘We have planned an aggressive exploration campaign (for the oil sector) in the next three years,’ Ambani said in a statement issued by the company after its annual general meeting.
   ‘This will take Reliance to a higher growth trajectory.’
   Last week, Reliance announced it had struck oil in the Cambay basin in western India, marking its 43rd discovery in India.
   The fuel-hungry nation, which imports 70 per cent of its oil needs, has been racing to discover new sources of energy to power its fast-growing economy.
   In the financial year ended March 2009, Reliance announced the first flow of crude from the company’s deep-sea oil and gas field in the Bay of Bengal off eastern India.
   Oil production began in September last year in a sector of the Krishna Godavari basin with an initial flow of 5,000 barrels a day.
   Gas production started in April at the same basin, which is among the five largest deepwater gas projects in the world.
   ‘The year 2009 was a challenging one. The global meltdown had its impact on communities, companies and countries,’ Ambani told shareholders.
   Last month, Reliance said quarterly net profit fell by 6.5 per cent to 38.52 billion rupees ($810m) in the three months to September, as core refining margins fell due to a slide in global crude prices.
   Ambani identified the areas of conventional energy, retail business and services, renewable and alternative energy, innovation and rural sector transformation for potential value creation for Reliance. The company plans to resume expansion of its retail businesses, which had faced opposition from farmers and policymakers across India since its launch.
   Reliance Retail, which includes supermarkets and also sells electronic products, clothing and household goods, currently operates 1,000 stores across 86 cities.

Ratan Tata, who bought the Land Rover and Jaguar brands, and Rupert Murdoch and Carlos Slim, who bought or invested in US newspapers, said on Monday that they had no regrets with their purchases.
   ‘No, it’s been a very difficult time,’ said Ratan Tata, the head of Tata Motors Ltd, India’s largest vehicle maker. Tata bought Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford Motor Co last year.
   At the Wall Street Journal CEO Council conference, Tata said he hopes the brands will be restored to their previous glory.
   In a discussion focused on whether or not they have regrets, global business tycoons Rupert Murdoch, News Corp’s chief executive, and Carlos Slim, who built a telecommunications empire and other big businesses in Mexico, denied any such feelings.
   ‘I have no regrets about the Wall Street Journal,’ Murdoch said.
   As the newspaper industry faces layoffs and drops in advertising revenue and circulation, the Wall Street Journal said in October that it will close its Boston bureau to save money.

Dutch-Bangla Bank Limited has recently received ‘Bankers’ Forum CSR Awards-2009’ in recognition of the bank’s programmess on corporate social responsibility that had been carried out since its inception.
   According to a press release, KS Tabrez, deputy managing director of the bank, received the award at a ceremony from the former governor of Bangladesh Bank, Salehuddin Ahmed.
   The award giving ceremony held on Saturday was attended, among others, by eminent singer Runa Laila while MA Khaleque, president of Bankers’ Forum, presided over the programme.

Pubali Bank Limited has inaugurated its 373rd branch at Naichiti in the southern district of Jhalkathi.
   Syed Moazzem Hussain, chairman of the bank’s board of directors, inaugurated the new branch as chief
   guest while managing director, Helal Ahmed Chowdhury, presided over the inaugurating function.
   Among others, senior executives and local elites were present on the occasion.

Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company Limited has recently held its 20th annual general meeting at Dhaka Sheraton Hotel, said a press release.
   The shareholders of the company and members of board of directors attended the meeting that was presided over by Mohammad Mohsin, chairman of BAPEX board and secretary of energy and mineral resources division.
   The AGM approved the audited accounts and audit report for the fiscal year 2008-2009 of BAPEX.
   During the previous fiscal year, total income of BAPEX stood at Tk 1061.11 million, total revenue expenditure was Tk 539.549 million and net-profit-before WPPF and taxation Tk 521.56 million.
   The shareholders and directors in their deliberation focused on the important role of the company to cope up with the growing demand for gas in the country.