Mats manufactured by financially vulnerable women of Rangpur-Dinajpur region are making room in the market across the country.
   Mat promotional activities, an initiative of Rangpur-Dinajpur Rural Service Bangladesh, an NGO, have so far changed the fortune of thousands of financially vulnerable women in the region.
   The product manufactured by the poor women of the country’s poverty-stricken areas is now being supplied across the country. The initiative has so far created job opportunities for thousands of women.
   About 4,000 women of greater Rangpur and Dinajpur districts are now engaged in manufacturing mats. Gradually, these women are becoming self-reliant providing additional support to their families.
   RDRS, Bangladesh began mat promotional activities in the worst poverty-stricken areas of the Rangpur and Dinajpur districts. The women of the areas were provided training by the organisation along with supplying raw materials free of cost to prepare mats in their houses. The NGO also took the responsibility of marketing the product.
   Nayon Moni, craft manager of the organisation, said that most of the poor women in the region are not directly involved in any income-generating activities in the lean period. Women in the monga-affected areas pass weeks even months with little work in the lean period when the male members go to other areas looking for job.
   He also said that the organisation began mat production and promotional activities by financially-vulnerable women at village level of the districts in 2005. It provided women 60-day practical training on mat production. Nearly 4,000 women have so far received training.
   The official said that her organisation also buys the finished product from them at the rate of Tk 10 per square foot. Later, RDRS sells the product across the country at 20-25 per cent higher price to maintain staff and other costs.
   Manjushri Shah, women rights coordinator, RDRS, said that mat production, as an income generating activity, is very useful for women, as they can do it at home without compromising other household activities like cooking, cleaning and looking after kids and elders.
   A woman can manufacture 10 to 15 square feet mat in a day that can earn her about Tk 100 to 150, she added.
   Hajera Begum, a 39-year-old woman of Gojoghanta village under Gongachara upazila in Rangpur, said that she along with her husband and three children used to starve or remain half-fed during Bengali months of Aswhin and Kartik, as there was no farm work.
   Having been engaged in mat production after receiving training she is now able to make additional money along with household works, she said adding that her family is now much better-off.

The commerce ministry looks concerned with a disputed stock of sugar supposedly held by Deshbandhu Sugar Mills despite the private refiner’s claim that the unsold stock had already been delivered to state-owned TCB.
   The private refiner was earlier allotted 6,000 tonnes of sugar from Bangladesh Sugar and Food Industries Corporation to export to the European Union countries where Bangladeshi products have duty-free access.
   But sources said it did not export the total quantity of allotted sugar and stored it to sell in the domestic market to gain from the Ramadan price hike of the essential.
   A parliamentary standing committee in September asked BSFIC to cancel the allotment for export while local market of sugar was overheated. It also called for an inquiry into the allegations that the company stockpiled sugar instead of exporting it to EU.
   BSFIC chairman Ranjit Kumar Biswas said they wanted Deshbandhu to return about 5,155 tonnes of sugar by last month.
   A commerce ministry official last week said Deshbandhu Sugar Mills had requested the ministry three weeks back to allow it to sell remaining sugar through Trading Corporation of Bangladesh.
   He said the commerce ministry was waiting for an opinion from BSFIC on the Deshbandhu’s request.
   Deshbandhu Group chairman Golam Mostafa told New Age on Friday that they had handed over the rest of the sugar to the TCB, which had already sold it out in the open market at government-fixed price during the month of Ramadan.
   ‘We exported bulk of the sugar bought from BSFIC. We had also given the rest of 550 tonnes of processed sugar to TCB for selling in the open market,’ he said
   ‘Due to unavailability of a ship to carry 6,000 tonnes of sugar in bulk, we could not export total amount and we had informed BSFIC of the difficulties last month,’ Mostafa said, adding that 845 tonnes of the allotted sugar were earlier sold in the domestic market with due permission.
   About returning the sugar, he said there is no sugar left for returning to BSFIC.
   ‘The sugar has been transferred to one government organisation from another and we did not stockpile during Ramadan as a parliamentary standing committee claimed,’ he added.
   Earlier, Deshbandhu Ltd had claimed it had refined and exported most of the sugar it bought from BSFIC.
   It said it had to refine 4,605 out of 6,000 tonnes of sugar allotted to it as the packages were damaged for being stockpiled for long in BSFIC warehouse.

The International Monetary Fund has expressed displeasure with the government for not adhering to its recommendation for merger of two Large Taxpayers Units — income tax and value added tax.
   A two-member IMF team led by its resident representative in Dhaka Jonathan C Dunn met the senior officials of the National Board of Revenue on Monday and expressed their views.
   The IMF had made the recommendation about two years ago saying merger would ensure exchange of information and reduce incidents of tax evasion.
   ‘We have made it clear that both of the units have already started exchanging information regarding payment of income tax and Vat before merger,’ a senior income tax official told the news agency after the meeting of IMF officials.
   In a meeting with income tax department, the IMF team has expressed satisfaction over impressive growth of revenue from income tax in the first quarter of current fiscal year.

Bangladesh Bank governor Atiur Rahman lamented the initiatives of the donor agencies and foreign private charities for eradicating poverty from Bangladesh.
   ‘Despite decades of public and private sector interventions supported by Overseas Development Assistance and foreign private charities, extreme poverty in Bangladesh remains stubborn,’ the governor told the news agency.
   Atiur believes strongly that resource constrains do not seem to be the main reason for slow headway in eradicating extreme poverty though Bangladesh is a low income country.
   The governor refers to different channels of resources, which are feeding the poverty reduction programmes regularly and increasingly. These include fiscal allocation for social safety net, large scale supports from foreign private charities to non- government organisations in poverty eradication, substantial volume of Zakat, increasing local private sector charities and the growing awareness of corporate social responsibilities.
   In spite of the positive scenario, the poverty reduction initiatives remain stuck at the low level of achievement, leaving a huge population in the vicious circle of the extreme poverty.
   ‘Weak targeting and leakage of resources are probably the main reasons for low success in redressing extreme poverty,’ Atiur explained.
   He observed that the poorest people in most cases are hard to reach and requires more targeted efforts to bring them out of the poverty cycle.
   The governor also pointed to the use of Zakat fund and the individual initiative in helping poor.
   ‘Zakat and the individual donations are usually doled out to the poorer relations and others visibly poorer in the immediate vicinity, not necessarily to the poorest,’ he said.
   Similarly, he said, the CSR are often not specially targeted to the poorest, even some initiatives benefiting the urban-based middle classes are publicised as CSR programmes.
   The governor recommended some strategic measures to make the poverty reduction initiatives more effectives. His suggestions include diverse programmes with precise targets, clearly set goals, objectives and accountability.
   Also, he suggested initiatives for skilled development of the poor, which will provide them with necessary skills to get into job markets and explore income generating opportunities.

HSBC, country’s one of the leading multinational banks, has taken initiative for bringing more remittance from the United Arab Emirate through its new product ‘One World-Free Remittance Proposition’.
   ‘We are going to introduce new product to bring more remittance thru legal channel from the non-resident Bangladeshis who live in Dubai,’ Md Shafquat Hossain, personal financial services head of HSBC Bank told reporters at his office in Dhaka on Monday.
   Manager of NRB services Md Towfiqul Alam Chowdhury and corporate sustainability and communication manager M Sami Hafiz also spoke on the occasion.
   Shafquat Hossain said as part of campaign to attract the NRBs to send their money through HSBC’s product, the HSBC would arrange a cultural programme styled ‘Dubai Night’ with the participation of the country’s two renowned performers on November 14.
   The product ‘One World-Free Remittance Proposition’ will enable NRBs having Dirham account with the branches of HSBC in Dubai to send their remittance free of cost by using their HSBC personal internet banking or through ATM machine.
   Customers can receive their funds in Bangladesh within three working days, he said.
   He claimed that the HSBC provides all the assistances to the Dubai-based NRBs having an account with the bank. The assistance included arranging vehicles to reach airport and arranging hotels for them in Dhaka whenever they visit.
   Campaign period for bringing more remittance from Dubai will be started from October 25 to January 2010.
   Three highest remitters from UAE using the One World product will be awarded with Dhaka–Dubai–Dhaka air ticket. All other remitters will be awarded with HSBC sponsored Drama DVD (Eka Othoba Koyekjon).
   Earlier, HSBC launched ‘Smart Capital, in April 2008, is a specially designed service proposition for NRB. This will provide NRBs the option to subscribe for IPO through a beneficiary owners account which will be funded by a Non-Resident Investors Taka Account. Both BO account and NITA will be held with HSBC Bangladesh.

Different industrial units in Chittagong Export Processing Zone exported items of worth $1,188 million during the last fiscal.
   Export target of the current fiscal is $1,250 million.
   As many as 1,41,611 Bangladeshi and 430 foreign workers are now serving in 151 industrial units in CEPZ.
   According to CEPZ sources, at present there are $730.468 million investment in the zone and it is increasing day by day.
   Of 151 industrial units, 85 are running with hundred per cent foreign investment.
   CEPZ general manager Ataul Haque said export volume was increasing gradually with the rise of investment, which was generating more employment also.
   In the last fiscal, the industrial units in the EPZ imported raw material of worth $780.532 million and exported directly to abroad from there.
   Considering the increasing interest of the foreign investors in CEPZ, the government has set up Karnaphuly EPZ at the land of now defunct Chittagong Steel Mills.
   In KEPZ, six thousand workers are now working in 16 industrial units. Over 50,000 people will get job here when all the units will go into operation.

Thailand company Bexter Brenton (Bangladesh) Clothing Manufacturing Limited will set up an industry in the Dhaka Export Processing Zone.
   The 100 per cent foreign owned company will invest $1.3 million in setting up their unit and will produce garments items. The company will also create employment opportunity for 292 workers including 11 foreign nationals, a news release said.
   An agreement to this effect was signed between the Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority and Bexter Brenton (Bangladesh) Clothing Manufacturing Limited at BEPZA Complex in Dhaka recently.
   BEPZA member (investment promotion) Md Moyjuddin Ahmed and Bexter Brenton managing director Kongkiat Thanakarnjanasuthi signed the agreement on behalf of their respective sides.
   Among others, BEPZA executive chairman Brigadier General Jamil Ahmed Khan was present.

Oil prices eased in Asian trade Monday as the US dollar recovered against the major currencies, analysts said.
   New York's main contract, light sweet crude for November delivery, fell a cent to $78.52 a barrel in afternoon trade after closing at $78.53 Friday, the highest level since October 2008.
   Brent North Sea crude for December delivery shed three cents to $76.96.
   The US dollar's rebound against the euro and other major units was the main factor behind the fall in crude prices, analysts said.
   Oil markets were 'pretty much impacted by the currency,' said Mark Pervan, a senior commodities strategist for ANZ Bank in Melbourne, Australia.
   A stronger dollar tends to discourage investors holding weaker foreign currencies from buying crude which is priced in the greenback.
   Crude prices had surged in recent sessions, fuelled partly by a slumping dollar which boosted investor appetite for hard assets such as oil and other commodities as they sought to protect their wealth from the falling US unit.
   Pervan said markets would be watching economic data due out this week such as the third-quarter figures from China as well as US housing numbers for September, noting that there could 'surprise on the upside.'

The board of directors of Aftab Automobiles has recommended 40 per cent stock dividend and 10 per cent cash dividend for the year ended on 31.08.09. The board has decided to change in the denomination of the face value of shares of the company from Tk 100 to Tk 10 each and market lot shall be 50 shares of Tk 10 each from existing 5 shares of Tk 100 each subject to approval of the shareholders in the EGM and SEC. Date of EGM and AGM: 06.12.09, Time of EGM and AGM: 9:30am and 10:00am respectively, Venue of the EGM and AGM: Bashundhara Convention Centre, Baridhara, Dhaka. Record date: 02.11.09. There will be no price limit on the trading of the shares of the company today following its corporate declaration.
   
   BGIC
   Sayeed Hossain Chowdhury, one of the sponsors/directors of the company, has reported his intention to sell 15,969 shares out of his total holdings of 70,404 shares of the company at prevailing market price through the stock exchange within next 30 working days.
   
   Information Services Network
   Shirin Huq, one of the sponsors/directors of the company, has reported her intention to sell 50,000 shares out of her total holdings of 2,19,502 shares of the company at prevailing market price through the stock exchange within next 30 working days.
   
   Apex Spinning
   The company has requested the concerned shareholders to collect their dividend warrants for the year 2008-2009 from 21.10.09 to 22.10.09 during office hours from the registered office of the company at Biman Bhaban (5th Floor), 100 Motijheel C/A, Dhaka.
   
   Apex Foods
   The company has requested the concerned shareholders to collect their dividend warrants for the year 2008-2009 from 24.10.09 to 26.10.09 during office hours from the registered office of the company at Biman Bhaban (5th Floor), 100 Motijheel C/A, Dhaka.
   Source: DSE

EU agriculture commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel announced on Monday that she would release 280 million euros ($418m) in aid for Europe’s ailing dairy farmers.
   ‘I’ll empty my pocket, and I have 280 million euros for the farmers,’ she said, at European Union farm talks in Luxembourg.
   ‘That’s (all) I have. I don’t have a special account in Switzerland or anywhere else,’ she told reporters, suggesting that little further help from the EU’s executive body could be expected.
   Her announcement came after 21 of the EU’s 27 nations, including France and Germany, called for the aid, which will be drawn from the bloc’s 2010 budget.
   Fischer Boel gave no details about what form the aid might take, saying only that: ‘You can call it a milk fund or whatever you want.’
   However she stressed that it would be the European Union, rather than EU countries themselves, that would decide how the money was allocated.
   ‘It will be for the (EU executive) commission to decide,’ she said, although she added: ‘But of course I will listen to the member states.’
   Last November, EU agriculture ministers agreed to lift milk production quotas by one per cent per year before scrapping them altogether in 2014-2015.
   But in recent months, European farmers have ramped up protests in search of EU support through financial aid or by limiting supplies, as dairy product prices collapsed due to low demand caused by the financial and economic crisis.
   Since 2007, milk prices have in the worst cases halved.
   But while the European Commission has agreed to introduce targeted aid to the sector, it has refused to go back on its decision to scrap the quota system.
   A European diplomat said the state of the EU budget left the commission some room for manoeuvre for the tranche of aid.
   Dairy producers, the diplomat noted, ‘would need something to get by with until prices rise again.’

An ashen Anil Ambani, one of the world’s richest men, stood before a clutter of television cameras, close to tears.
   ‘There is only pain, hurt and emotion,’ he said, his voice catching.
   There is also, by some calculations, at least $17 billion at stake.
   Anil and his brother Mukesh — ranked by Forbes magazine as the world’s 34th and 7th richest individuals — are locked in an increasingly bitter fight over India’s biggest natural gas deposit.
   The battle between the famous sons of one of India’s first great capitalists has quickly become the nation’s favourite family feud. It has also exposed flaws in the government’s management of the crucial energy sector and the cosy relationship between officials and one of India’s wealthiest families.
   The case is scheduled to go before India’s Supreme Court on October 20.
   Some policymakers say the dispute, along with the global recession, has further discouraged the investment so badly needed to help develop gas and oil resources for this energy-hungry nation of 1.2 billion people.
   After trying to recruit foreign investors from Houston to Perth, the government got bids last week for just 36 of 70 oil and gas blocks on offer. Only seven foreign companies participated.
   Meanwhile, the bickering brothers have made it harder for energy to reach people in a country where more than 450 million struggle by on less than $1.25 a day.
   Each claims the legal battle is preventing their companies from selling gas or building new power plants.
   At issue is the price of natural gas from India’s largest known deposit: The Krishna Godavari basin, off the eastern coast, which would double the amount of natural gas produced in India.
   A family agreement signed by the brothers in 2005, after their father, Dhirubhai Ambani, died without leaving a will, says that Mukesh’s company, Reliance Industries, will sell Anil’s company, Reliance Natural Resources, at least a third of the basin’s projected output. The price agreed back then is well below what the gas can be sold for now.
   Both Reliance Industries and government officials now argue that the 2005 agreement is void because the government never approved the below-market price.
   Anil counters that Reliance Industries is trying to break a binding contract, abetted by Mukesh’s allies in the Ministry of Petroleum, which is headed by an old friend of their father.
   In June, the Bombay High Court upheld the substance of the family agreement. That ruling is being appealed in the Supreme Court.
   Mukesh’s company is counting on making $11.5 billion from the gas if he’s allowed to increase the price. But if Anil gets his way, that anticipated profit could turn into a $5.4 billion loss.
   For Anil, the cost of losing the case could be even higher. Analysts, and Anil himself, say the future of Reliance Natural Resources hangs in the balance. The gas supply contract, he told shareholders in July, is ‘our company’s primary asset and contributes most of its value.’
   Angel Broking analyst Deepak Pareek calculated the company’s stock price would likely plunge by 76 per cent if Anil loses the case.
   The pressure has compelled Anil to break the cosy silence that typically clings to power in India.
   He’s taken on not just his brother, but the Indian government itself, issuing a weeklong series of front page newspaper advertisements lambasting the government for allowing his brother to rake in ‘super-normal’ profits.
   Broadening the attacks, Anil’s company in court documents accuses a top energy official, VK Sibal, of accepting favours — including apartments and home appliances for his daughters. The daughters allegedly stayed in ‘posh guest houses’ owned by Mukesh’s company for several months during the time Sibal decided to approve new capital spending rules that would increase RIL’s profits.
   Sibal, now reportedly under investigation, denies those charges. ‘I fear a threat to my life,’ he said in a letter leaked to the press.
   Reliance Industries and the government have issued sober denials of Anil’s other allegations too.

Saudi petrochemicals giant Sabic said Sunday it doubled earnings in the third quarter against the previous period as the global economy bottomed out and its product prices surged on higher oil prices.
   Saudi Basic Industries Corp., the Gulf’s largest listed company and one of the world’s leading petrochemical producers, reported a 3.6 billion riyal ($960m) net profit for the July-September period, exactly double the previous quarter.
   Profits were 50 per cent down on the year-earlier quarter, when the company enjoyed much higher oil prices and the financial crisis was just beginning to hit Sabic’s markets, chief executive Mohammed al-Mady said at a media conference in Riyadh.
   Sales were up 13.7 per cent to 27 billion riyals ($7.2b) from the second quarter, but were 39.2 per cent down from the year-earlier figure.
   Sales volume meanwhile was up three per cent from a year ago, the company said.
   Mady said the jump in profits from the second quarter was evidence of both higher prices and the recovery in the company’s markets, especially in Asia, for a wide range of plastics and other petrochemical products.
   ‘In spite of repercussions arising from the global economic crisis, Sabic has maintained the same operational levels,’ Mady said.
   In the first quarter of 2009, Sabic posted a 974 million riyal ($260m) loss as petrochemical prices plunged, its first quarterly loss since 2001.
   The third-quarter earnings were above forecasts by analysts, which had ranged between two and three billion riyals.
   Mady was cautious about the near future, with some economists predicting another global slowdown as the effects of industrial restocking and government stimulus actions wear off.
   ‘It remains to be seen when the stimulus effect runs out if the economy will remain at the same speed or slow down,’ he said.

Britain’s financial regulator plans to force mortgage lenders to check the income of all borrowers, scrapping so-called ‘liar loans’ blamed for helping to fuel bad debt problems at the heart of the credit crunch.
   In the first draft of plans to overhaul the UK mortgage market, the Financial Services Regulator said on Monday it would also impose affordability tests for all mortgages, but stopped short of capping loan value to property price ratios that could have effectively banned 100 or 125 per cent mortgages.
   The initial findings of the long-awaited review—which reflects the increasingly hands-on approach of a regulator widely criticized in the aftermath of the credit crunch—also called for the FSA’s scope to extend to buy-to-let mortgages.
   ‘There are clearly certain types of loans which should not be made and there are clearly some consumers who should not place themselves in a position where they wouldn’t be able to repay that mortgage in the future,’ FSA CEO Hector Sants said.
   Sants told BBC radio that risk was useful to innovation, but warned the mortgage market had simply become too complex.
   ‘Back in 2007 there were something like 10,000 different mortgage products available, something like 3,000 or so products available in the sub-prime area. I think that’s a level of complexity we could well do without,’ he said.
   Residential mortgage debt in the UK, which soared in the boom years, now amounts to around 1.23 trillion pounds, according to the FSA, and accounts for approximately 70 per cent of all credit extended by lenders in the UK.
   Changes to mortgage regulation are a key plank of reforms which the FSA and the government hope will avoid a repeat of the unbridled boom in household debt in the run-up to the crisis.
   ‘We... call on the industry to start making changes immediately. They don’t have to wait for final rules to adopt fair and responsible lending practices,’ Financial Services Secretary to the UK Treasury Paul Myners said.

Axiata (Bangladesh) Limited and Warid Telecom International Limited (Warid), two major telecommunications companies in the country, signed an infrastructure sharing agreement in Dhaka recently.
   In line with the infrastructure sharing guideline of the Bangladesh Telecommuni-cation Regulatory Commission, the agreement allows both the operators to share tower spaces for setting up microwave and GSM antennas. It also allows sharing the same land space for setting up BTS room, electrical power and generator power sharing. The overall effect of the deal is that it reduces the time and resources utilised by both operators in finding suitable sites, a news release said.
   Aktel managing director and chief executive officer Michael Kuehner and Warid chief executive officer Muneer Farooqui signed the agreement on behalf of their respective companies.

Mutual Trust Bank opened its seventh brokerage house branch at Green Taj Centre on Road 8 at Dhanmondi in Dhaka on Monday.
   MTB director Yasmeen Haque inaugurated the branch at a ceremony. MTB managing director and chief executive officer Anis A Khan, capital market investors, business personalities, dignitaries, and senior MTB officials attended the inaugural function, a news release said.
   In her address, the MTB director said the bank was bringing its brokerage house services nearer to the doorsteps of capital market investors across the country and ensuring superior services so that they found it easy to trade in capital market instruments through MTB.
   The MTB managing director said the new branch had been equipped with the latest technology and all other convenient facilities to deliver superior quality customer services.

IDLC Finance Limited, a multi-product financial institution, recently arranged a training programme on ‘Anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism regulations’ to strengthen knowledge for its mid-level executives.
   The training programme was held at its corporate head office in Dhaka. Fifty executives from different branches and operational units participated in the training programme, a news release said.
   Bangladesh Bank general manager (anti-money laundering department) Mahfuzur Rahman attended the training programme as chief guest while Standard Chartered Bank head of legal, compliance & assurance Choudhury MAQ Sarwar was present as special guest.
   IDLC acting chief executive officer and managing director Arif Khan inaugurated the training course and highlighted IDLC’s policies on strict adherence to the regulatory compliance.