The subscription of initial public offering of ICB Employees Provident Mutual Fund One: Scheme One and RN Spinning Mills Limited begins today.
   The ICB mutual fund is offering 7.50 crore units of Tk 10 each totalling Tk 75 crore, according to the IPO prospectus of the fund.
   RN Spinning Mills is issuing 30 lakh ordinary shares of Tk 100 each totalling Tk 30 crore.
   The subscription of the companies’ IPOs will close on November 26 for local investors. For non-resident Bangladeshis, it will close on December 5.
   RN Spinning Mills was converted into public limited company on February 20, 2007 and started its commercial operation on July 5, 2007.
   Authorised capital of the company is Tk 150 crore. The company was incorporated in Bangladesh on November 4, 2004 as a private limited company in the Comilla Export Processing Zone, Comilla.
   AAA Consultants and Financial Advisers Ltd is the manager to the issue.

India has scrapped tenders to import rice, saying it has enough stocks to manage despite a harvest shortfall following the worst monsoon in almost four decades.
   A top-level cabinet committee on food cancelled the three tenders totalling 30,000 tonnes, which would have represented the first imports of the staple by India — a traditional exporter — since the 1980s.
   ‘We are not importing (rice). We have adequate stocks. We will review (the decision) if there is any need,’ commerce minister Anand Sharma told reporters late Friday after the committee met.
   The tenders had been floated by state-owned trading firms MMTC, State Trading Corp and PEC.
   However, the Press Trust of India quoted an unnamed official as saying: ‘The government does not want to buy at such high prices.’
   The decision not to import marks a U-turn from a government announcement when Sharma said India was in talks with Thailand and Vietnam about buying rice to offset an estimated summer harvest shortfall of at least 15 million tonnes.
   The country of nearly 1.2 billion people produced a record 99.15
   million tonnes of rice last year.
   Industry officials said the decision to scrap the purchase tenders might be a strategy to cool rising international prices and that the government could seek to enter the market when it was more favourable.
   Global prices rose after India announced it was entering the market.
   The three state trading firms had been asked to import 10,000 tonnes of rice each.
   Domestic rice prices have soared 25 per cent in the last four months on supply worries after the poor annual rains, which were followed in some areas by devastating floods that hit crops.
   Private traders have already imported at least 4,00,000 tonnes of rice, in expectation of higher domestic prices, and Indian media reports say the figure is expected to rise.
   India is the world’s second-largest rice producer and the shortfall comes after bumper harvests in the two preceding years. However, the country still has comfortable buffer stocks totalling 14.5 million tonnes, nearly triple its target of 5.2 million tonnes.

United Airways (BD) Limited, a leading private airliner, launched its operation on Dhaka-London route Saturday, the first by any private airliners to operate flight on this route.
   Civil aviation and tourism minister GM Quader inaugurated the Dhaka-London flight at Zia International Airport in the morning.
   Commerce minister Faruk Khan, former Air Force chief Jamal Uddin Ahmed and chairman and managing director of United Airways Tasbirul Ahmed Chowdhury, among others, spoke on the occasion.
   GM Quader said the country’s economy was making gradual progress, as non-resident Bangladeshis were coming forward to invest in the country.
   Tasbirul said the operation was undoubtedly an achievement for the country’s aviation industry as the United Airways is the first airliner to have planned flight on this important route in Europe.
   He said they would initially operate two passenger flights a week on the Dhaka-London route.
   Earlier, former president HM Ershad inaugurated the Dhaka-London flight service at Osmani International Airport in Sylhet.

The Bangladesh Brand Forum on Saturday inaugurated a business knowledge centre at Gulshan in the city.
   The energy adviser to the Prime Minister, Towfique Elahi Chowdhury, inaugurated the centre in a ceremony that was presided over by Shariful Islam, the president of the forum.
   Farhat Anwar, professor of Institute of Business Administration under Dhaka University, also addressed the function as special guest.
   A library with business journals, interactive computer terminals and video archive are the main features of the first phase of the Knowledge Centre.

Senegal Airlines, due to begin flights in 2010, has joined in ‘strategic, technical and commercial partnership’ with Dubai’s Emirates, the largest Middle East carrier, a news release said on Friday.
   The agreement was signed on Wednesday, according to a Senegalese government source, during the biennial Dubai Airshow.
   ‘The terms of the partnership will be negotiated later’, the government source said, ‘Emirates will accompany the new company on commercial and technical aspects, and staff training’.
   Private operators own 64 per cent in Senegal Airlines, the state 31 per cent and 5 per cent by individuals.
   The new company replaces Air Senegal International, which was owned by the state and the now liquidated Royal Air Maroc.

Oil prices remained depressed Friday amid a strengthening dollar and concerns over sustainable economic recovery.
   New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for December delivery, dropped 74 cents to end the week at $76.72 after slumping by more than two dollars on Thursday.
   London’s Brent North Sea crude for January delivery lost 44 cents to $77.20.
   Traders said oil investors tracked the global stock and foreign exchange markets as they weighed prospects for next week.
   Shares continued to give up gains in Asia, Europe and the United States on corporate and economic recovery worries.
   In Japan, investors were worried that a long bout of falling consumer prices could threaten the world’s second largest economy’s recovery from its worst recession in decades and eat into corporate profits and prompted consumers to put off purchases.
   US economic data this week also did little to soothe recovery concerns, pulling down Wall Street shares.
   Fresh data showed slightly hotter-than-expected reading of prices at the consumer level, a smaller-than-expected increase in industrial production, unexpected declines in both housing starts and building permits, and a jobless claims report that failed to drop below the 5,00,000 mark as some had hoped.
   The oil market ‘followed the stock market and the dollar,’ said analyst Andy Lipow of Lipow Oil Associates.
   The dollar, a safe haven currency, rallied Friday as investors shunned assets viewed as risky, such as the euro and stocks, on fresh concerns about the strength of global economic recovery.
   A higher dollar makes greenback-denominated commodities such as crude oil more expensive for buyers using other currencies.
   Supply concerns also dogged the market. Lipow particularly cited high distillate inventories in the United States, the world’s largest energy consuming nation.
   The US government weekly inventory data showed that stockpiles of distillates, which include diesel and heating fuel, fell 3,00,000 barrels in the previous week. Analysts had pencilled in a bigger drop of 5,00,000 barrels.
   ‘In the near term, we have a huge oversupply, and the weather forecast for this winter has been changing towards either normal or warmer than normal type of season (and) if that happens, we will exit the winter with huge amount of distillate inventories and that would be bearish for the oil market,’ he said.

US stocks fell for a third straight session Friday, with the tech sector in focus after weak results from computer maker Dell on the heels of a downgrade of key semiconductor stocks.
   The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 14.28 points (0.14 per cent) to 10,318.16, finishing the week on a slim gain of 0.46 per cent.
   The tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 11.92 points (0.55 per cent) to 2,146.04 and the broad-market Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 3.52 points (0.32 per cent) to 1,091.38. Both indexes were lower for the week.
   Stocks started off on a bearish note after Dell reported late Thursday that its third quarter net profit declined 54 per cent and revenue dropped 15 per cent.
   The news coming a day after a Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s downgrade of eight microchip companies, including Intel and Texas Instruments, kept the market jittery.
   ‘The firm fell woefully short of analysts’ profit and revenue expectations, sparking concerns about the health of the broader tech sector,’ said analyst Elizabeth Harrow of Schaeffer’s Investment Research.
   European Central Bank president Jean-Claude Trichet’s warning that ‘it is too early to declare the (financial) crisis over’ also made investors nervous, she said.
   Trichet however indicated that supportive stimulus measures must soon be unwound, prompting traders to buy the US dollar in a safe-haven stampede, pressuring oil futures lower. Energy stocks joined tech issues in the red.
   Analysts at Charles Schwab & Co said traders ‘continue to rein in risk appetites’ while grappling with whether the economic recovery from recession can continue without major problems.

US president Barack Obama, back from a tour of Asia, called Saturday for the United States to produce more goods to sell across the Pacific, touting trade as a way to revive the troubled US economy.
   Facing rising unemployment and slipping poll numbers, Obama assured the public that creating new jobs back home was his top priority on the week-long tour that took him to Japan, Singapore, China and South Korea.
   ‘I travelled to Asia to open a new era of American engagement,’ Obama said in his weekly radio address, recorded while he was in Seoul.
   ‘Above all, I spoke with leaders in every nation I visited about what we can do to sustain this economic recovery and bring back jobs and prosperity for our people — a task I will continue to focus on relentlessly in the weeks and months ahead,’ he said.
   Obama, who was elected in the midst of the worst economic crisis in decades, said the lesson of the turmoil was that the world’s largest economy should not fuel its growth on going into debt.
   ‘In order to keep growing, we need to spend less, save more and get our federal deficit under control,’ Obama said.
   ‘We also need to place a greater emphasis on exports that we can build, produce, and sell to other nations — exports that can help create new jobs at home and raise living standards throughout the world,’ he said.
   If the United States increased exports to Asia-Pacific nations by five per cent, ‘we can increase the number of American jobs supported by these exports by hundreds of thousands,’ Obama said.
   He gave the example of the Massachusetts-based American Superconductor Corporation, which he said has added more than 100 jobs by providing wind power and smart grid systems to Asia’s emerging economies.
   But Obama acknowledged he could not bring back all the jobs lost in the crisis.
   ‘Even though it will take time, I can promise you this: we are moving in the right direction,’ he said.
   Pro-trade business groups have had mixed feelings about Obama, whose Democratic Party enjoys strong support from labour unions.
   On his trip, Obama said the United States would engage in the Trans-Pacific Partnership — a hitherto obscure pact involving Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore — in hopes of building a vast trans-Pacific free-trade zone.
   But a free-trade agreement between the United States and South Korea reached under predecessor George W Bush remains in limbo, with Obama pressing Seoul to make more concessions for the beleaguered US auto industry.

India is not considering imposing a tax to curb an influx in overseas funds, and indeed wants an increase in inflows, the deputy chairman of the government’s planning commission said on Friday.
   Foreign investors have so far bought more than $15 billion of local equities in 2009, after selling $13 billion in 2008, helping send Indian stocks up about 75 per cent and lifting the rupee to its highest in more than a year.
   Brazil and Taiwan have taken steps to curb hot money inflows, and other governments are keeping a watchful eye on inflows, wary that they could fuel asset price bubbles.
   ‘It (capital flows) is rising but we want it to rise a little bit more,’ Montek Singh Ahluwalia told Reuters when asked whether government was considering restrictions on capital flows.
   Asked if there was a possibility of India imposing a tax to curb capital flows, he said, ‘I will certainly not.’
   Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission of India, a government body that advises on key economic issues, said foreign funds were needed for developing infrastructure such as road projects and were unlikely to create asset price bubbles.
   ‘Bubbles only happen if you can’t use the money productively. We should be able to use it productively,’ he said outside his office.
   India has said it needs to invest $500 billion on infrastructure over the five years to 2012.
   ‘So I do not anticipate any asset bubbles,’ he said.
   Economists, however, have said the government may need to impose restrictions on capital flows at some point to head off volatility in the stock and commodity markets.
   ‘The government is not likely to do it (impose tax) in a hurry, but, considering the steps taken by other emerging markets and the impact on the economy, it cannot be ruled out,’ said Abheek Barua, chief economist at HDFC Bank, India’s second largest private sector lender.
   He said flow of funds could become a ‘real problem’ by next year, and India would perhaps have no other option but to impose restrictions.
   ‘The imposition of tax will not affect the long-term flow of funds, as a tax could be considered on flow of short-term non-FDI funds and restrictions on overseas borrowings,’ he said.
   On Thursday, finance secretary Ashok Chawla said the government was not considering a cap on overseas borrowings and would see how the situation evolved before considering what needs to be done.
   The Reserve Bank has said there was a risk that if it raised interest rates ahead of other central banks, it could attract more inflows and complicate policymaking.
   India and South Korea are expected to be among the first Group of 20 nations, after Australia, to begin raising interest rates as they recover from the global financial crisis.
   Higher capital inflows have resulted in currency appreciation mainly in Asia and Latin America, prompting central banks contemplate a range of measures to hold back the tide.

The Dubai economy is growing at a five per cent rate, less than in previous years but ahead of the most cautious forecasts, the head of a government economic committee said on Friday.
   ‘Yes, we are affected by what is going in the world but we are confident in the stability of the city,’ Mohammad Alabbar, also chairman of construction giant Emaar, told a World Economic Forum conference in the emirate.
   ‘Last year we were all in the eye of the storm. The past 12 months have been quite painful months,’ he said.
   ‘GDP growth is now five per cent. We used to have a growth of 14 per cent (so) this isn’t bad news, but it’s not as good as before,’ said Alabbar, whose committee is tasked with helping Dubai counter the impact of the global economic crisis.
   The International Monetary Fund has predicted GDP growth of about 3.5 per cent this year for the United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is part, down from the 7.4 per cent achieved in 2008.
   Dubai Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed Al-Maktoum, in a speech officially opening the conference, was upbeat about the future.
   ‘Our economy is humming again this year. And compared to most international growth rates, the UAE is showing a healthy economic resurgence,’ he said in a speech.
   Alabbar denied reports of a mass exodus of expatriate workers from Dubai. In the past 12 months ‘400,000 people have come to live in Dubai,’ he said, while refusing to put a figure on the number who have left.
   The 2006 census put Dubai’s overall population at 1.4 million.
   Alabbar said an announcement is likely in the next few days on the proposed merger between Emaar and other state-linked companies Dubai Properties, Sama Dubai and Tatweer.
   Last month Emaar announced a net profit of 655 million dirhams ($178m) in the third quarter from a loss of 1.285 billion dirhams ($350m) in the three months to June.
   The Dubai property sector, in which Emaar is the biggest operator, was badly affected by the international crisis, as property prices plunged by 50 per cent from their peak.

US newspaper advertising revenue fell by nearly 28 per cent in the third quarter, continuing a slide which has led to layoffs, bankruptcies and the closure of several dailies.
   Print and online advertising revenue declined to $6.4 billion in the third quarter from $8.9 billion in the same quarter a year ago, according to figures released by the Newspaper Association of America.
   Print advertising revenue fell 28.95 per cent to $5.8 billion with classified advertising revenue down 37.9 per cent to $1.46 billion.
   Classified ad revenue at US newspapers has collapsed in recent years faced with competition from free online classified sites such as Craigslist.
   The online advertising picture was not much brighter. Online advertising revenue declined by 16.92 per cent in the quarter to $623.1 million.
   NAA president and chief executive John Sturm said ‘given the depressed state of the overall economy’ the third quarter figures should ‘come as no surprise.’
   ‘Rather, these numbers are in line with most expectations, and even show some modest directional improvement in key categories like retail and national,’ Sturm said in a statement.
   ‘There may not be great visibility into 2010 and beyond, but the broad consensus is that the worst has passed,’ he said.
   Newspapers across the United States have been grappling with a slide in advertising revenue, steadily declining circulation and the migration of readers to free news online.
   Average daily circulation for 379 daily newspapers was down 10.62 per cent in the April-September period compared with the same period last year, according to Audit Bureau of Circulations figures released last month.
   Print advertising revenue at US newspapers has now fallen for 13 quarters in a row, according to NAA figures, while online ad revenue has dropped for the past six quarters.

Apollo Hospitals Dhaka recently signed a corporate agreement with Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies to provide
   priority corporate benefits and medical services for their members and employees.
   Apollo Hospitals acting chief executive officer Shahjahan Majumder and BAIRA president Ghulam Mustafa signed the agreement, said a news release.
   Apollo Hospitals general manager Shagufa Anwar spoke on the occasion.

Dhaka Bank has recently signed a participation agreement with Bangladesh Bank for getting refinance against bank’s finance in the sectors of solar energy, bio-gas and effluent treatment plant.
   Managing director of the bank Knondker Fazle Rashid and Bangladesh Bank executive director Md Abut Quasem signed the deal at a ceremony held in Dhaka on behalf of their respective sides, said a news release.
   Among others, Dhaka Bank deputy managing director Neaz Mohammad Khan, SAVP and SME in-charge Md Shaukat Ali Khan, deputy general manager (ACSPD) Mohd Nurul Islam and Bangladesh Bank deputy director Md Nasser Ahmed Bhuiyan were present on the occasion.

IFIC Bank Limited opened the 79th branch at Panchabati in Narayanganj recently.
   Chairman of the bank Mohammad Lutfar Rahman inaugurated the bank’s branch, said a news release.
   Managing director of the bank Mosharraf Hossain, deputy managing director Mohammad Abdullah, senior officials of the bank and local businessmen and elites were also present on the occasion.

Southeast Bank Limited opened its 1st SME service centre at Hathazari in Chittagong recently.
   Senior executive vice-president and head of credit division of the bank Mohammed Gofran inaugurated the SME centre, said a news release. SEVP and head of information technology division SN Mainuddin Chowdhury, SEVP and head of human resources division Shahid Hossain, bank’s senior executives of Chittagong region, local businessmen and elites were also present in the function.