Small and medium enterprises of the country would not flourish if the interest rate for their loans is not brought down to half of the general interest rate, newly-appointed chairman of the SME Foundation has said.
   ‘SMEs will not flourish if the interest rate (on SME loans) is not down to half of the general rate,’ Aftab ul Islam told a press conference at the SMEF office on Wednesday.
   At present, banks charge up to 13 per cent interest for agriculture, medium and large enterprises while small enterprises are higher than 13 per cent.
   The chairman, who was appointed to the post on August 24 succeeding industries minister Dilip Barua, said that banks have negative attitude towards SMEs, which needs to change.
   He said the foundation should have a bank of its own to provide much better financial helps to the SMEs.
   Replying to a question, Aftab, who was appointed for two years, said, ‘I have a dream to see the foundation’s own bank during my tenure. But, I will be happy if I can see the bank during my lifetime.’
   He emphasized on credit whole-selling by the foundation with the help of banks that are focused on SMEs to provide loans to the entrepreneurs at 7-8 percent interest.
   Saying that SMEF is suffering from image crisis, Aftab assured that he would work with everyone to overcome the image crisis of the organisation.
   He said the SMEF has so far failed to fulfil the high hope and aspiration of people, as it is run more like a government entity instead of a private one, its new chairman has said.
   ‘It should run like a private corporate office. But, it is run more like a government office,’ newly appointed chairman, a professional accountant and businessman.
   This is why, the SMEF could not fulfil the high hope and aspiration of the people, he added.
   Aftab said access to credit and need of working capital are the main problems faced by the country’s small and medium entrepreneurs.
   Describing country’s small and medium entrepreneurs as resilient, he said that if these problems, which would be his priorities, could be resolved they would contribute significantly to the development of the country.
   The chairman termed SMEs as mini-credit and hoped that one day they would replace micro credit that is currently branding Bangladesh in the face of the world.
   He said that in order to materialise the dream of digital Bangladesh by 2021, the country should be industrialised led by the SMEs.
   Aftab, the immediate-past president of the American Chamber of Commerce, said that if he could integrate his ideas with the ideas of the board of directors, it could be possible to fulfil the expectation of the people.
   He said that along with cottage industries, SMEs account for the 98 per cent of the country’s total industries.
   The managing director of SMEF, Prof Momtaz Uddin Ahmed, told the media conference that they are trying to acquire about Tk 200 crore of Bangladesh Bank’s Tk 500-crore small enterprise fund.
   This would enable SMEF whole-selling credit, he added.

The state-run Bangladesh Telephone Shilpa Sangstha is set to become the country’s first company to manufacture and market cellular phones early next year and reduce the country’s dependency on import in the fast growing telecom sector.
   The BTSS is also getting prepared for low-cost laptop production depending on import of the necessary technology, a parliamentary panel was told on Wednesday.
   ‘In line with the government‘s Vision 2021 for Digital Bangladesh, the government will try to reduce technological discrimination by providing tele-equipment to the people at affordable prices,’ said the chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on the post and telecommunications ministry, Hasanul Haq Inu, after a meeting.
   The officials said that the government has taken up a number of schemes to produce information technology equipment at competitive prices with the help of imported technology.
   The BTSS cell phone is expected to hit the market by February 2010 at the latest. The price range of the hand-sets will be between Tk 1,500 and Tk 10,000, depending on their options and features, said an official of the state-owned Bangladesh Telecom Company Ltd.
   The committee’s chairman said that as the government has the necessary infrastructure in hand, it will also produce digital land-phones, which will cost between Tk 500 and Tk 600. These sets will hit the market in November.
   At present only imported phones can be found in the market.
   ‘Once we produce the phone sets locally, we will be able to save a huge amount of foreign currency,’ said Inu, adding that the government is also working on a master plan for production of laptops at the BTSS factory in Tongi.
   The factory has also been asked to produce solar panels to help the energy-starved country use clean and renewable energy.
   The Bangladesh Cable Shilpa Sangstha, a sister concern of the BTCL located in the southern district of Khulna, was asked to go for production of optical fibre, but it is still manufacturing copper cables.
   The committee observed that the demand for copper-based cable has been reduced but the demand for optical fibre was on the rise.
   ‘The Cable Shilpa Sangstha is capable of meeting 75 per cent of the domestic demand for optical fibre,’ said Inu, adding that it will also continue production of cables being used for domestic electric connections.
   The government has already allocated Tk 10 crore for the optical fibre project, he added.
   Wednesday’s meeting was attended by the Awami League’s whip and committee member ASM Feroz, Abdul Quddus, Mozammel Hossain Ratan and senior officials of the BTCL and the BTSS.

Successful implementation of ‘lean manufacturing system’ through constant monitoring of the production line can bring down wastages at factories, industry analysts said.
   A local garment unit of the AJI group, which introduced the system, cut down about 21 per cent of wastages, saving Tk five million per month.
   Sources in the industrial sector said some entrepreneurs these days have discerned the efficacy of the so-called lean manufacturing system to reduce wastages to bring down production costs to make their industrial ventures efficient and profit making.
   At a function marking the completion of a lean management orientation project, officials of the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association and GTZ, the German Technical Cooperation agency, stressed on introducing the lean system in the garment industry, the country’s top export earner.
   BKMEA president Fazlul Hoque, who was chief guest at the function, hoped lean system would help reduce cost of production and raise further competitiveness of the country’s vibrant RMG sector in the global market.
   Lean manufacturing is based on the reality of the factory floor where close monitoring of the production line should be maintain to cut down unnecessary wastages and ensure efficiency. It uses empirical methods to decide what matters, rather than uncritically accepting preconceived ideas about the production process.
    ‘Lean is like the traffic light system,’ said Jasim Uddin, a BKMEA official and coordinator of the orientation project. He stressed the need for close monitoring of performance and faults ratio of an individual worker on the factory floor.
   The Polo Composite Knit Industry, owned by AJI group, at its factory at Savar successfully implemented the lean system and found significant improvement preventing wastages.
   Polo Composite, a $36 million industrial venture, employs some 4,500 workers and it has major buyers like American Polo.
   AJI Group managing director Abdul Jalil Ananta told New Age that the lean system really helped his company in upgrading management and reducing wastages through efficient production management.
   The gtz has been supporting a productivity improvement project under lean window and some 50 factories have initiated to practice the system.
   Dr Dietrich Strotz, programme coordinator of gtz, Dr. Mohammad A Moyeen, chairman of Productivity Improvement Programme at BKMEA and Nachabo Techajian Nino, technical director of the AJI group also spoke at the function held at Savar.

A US tax probe against Swiss bank UBS has killed traditional offshore banking and wealth managers will have to improve their offers to survive, bankers and industry experts said on Tuesday.
   Offshore private banking involves managing the wealth of rich clients from a foreign location.
   However, some clients have exploited the system to avoid paying taxes, especially if carried out in traditional banking secrecy strongholds like Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
   The situation has been thrust into the limelight since Washington accused UBS of using Swiss bank secrecy laws to help wealthy clients avoid paying taxes and forced it last month to hand over some treasured client data.
   UBS’s capitulation to the US tax authorities and a global crackdown on tax evasion are denting the allure for banks to shelter untaxed money, experts say.
   ‘The entire offshore banking model seems to be dead,’ said Teodoro Cocca, a professor for Wealth and Asset Management at the Johannes Kepler University in Austria.
   ‘Forget bank secrecy and focus on onshore or on tax compliant business,’ he told an audience of Swiss private bankers.
   Experts say there has been almost no growth in the offshore private banking business in recent years, even though some small players are still attracting tax-sensitive money. The returns offered are just becoming too risky, Cocca said.
   Top bankers say private banks in Switzerland, the world’s largest offshore centre with an estimated $2 trillion in managed wealth, should learn from UBS’s troubles and compete more with other banks on their home turfs.
   ‘The consequences of the crisis at UBS have been dramatic,’ said Pierre de Weck, Head of Private Wealth Management at Deutsche Bank.

The government has formed an eight-member committee headed by the chairman of the Tariff Commission, to work out Dhaka’s strategy for
   reaching an understanding with other least dev-eloped countries to uphold their common demands at World Trade Organisation.
   The committee will work as a core group with representation from both the public and private sectors, according to a decision taken at an inter-ministry meeting on Tuesday.
   It has been asked to submit its report by September 25 so that the Bangladesh team to be headed by the commerce minister, Faruk Khan, could properly negotiate other LDC members during the three-day meeting in Tanzanian capital Dar es Salaam in September 14-16.
   Seven committees have also been assigned to report to the commerce ministry by October 15 to support the Bangladesh delegation which will join the WTO talks in Geneva from November 30 and December 2.
   Dhaka is expected to reiterate its demand at the global forum for duty-free and quota-free access of all commodities from the least developed countries to the developed countries.

Trading Corporation of Bangladesh will buy 1,000 tonnes of sugar from Bangladesh Sugar Refiners’ Association at rate of Tk 39,000 per tonne.
   The sugar will be sold at fair prices through the TCB’s own dealers at different places in the capital.
   The decision was made at a meeting held at the commerce ministry on Tuesday, said an official release Wednesday. Commerce minister Faruk Khan presided over the meeting.
   Representatives of Bangladesh Sugar Refiners’ Association attended the meeting.

Around three lakh sharecroppers of the country are expected to get agriculture credit of Tk 500 crore during the current fiscal year.
   BRAC, a non-government organisation, will disburse the loans through their 150 branch networks in 150 upazilas in 35 districts under an agreement signed Wednesday with Bangladesh Bank.
   Bangladesh Bank governor Atiur Rahman, senior central bank executives and BRAC founder chairman Fazle Hasan Abed were present at the signing ceremony at the Bangladesh Bank conference room.
   Early this fiscal year, Bangladesh Bank had announced an allocation of Tk 500 crore as agriculture credit dedicated exclusively for the sharecroppers. This is the first ever credit allocation for the sharecroppers in the history of Bangladesh.
   The central bank earlier decided to disburse a total agriculture credit of Tk 12,000 crore, including allocation for sharecroppers for fiscal 2009-10.
   The allocation of increased agriculture credit is to support the government’s desperate bid to increase agricultural production and keep food prices at an affordable level.
   As per the agreement, Bangladesh Bank will provide the entire fund — Tk 450 crore as crop loan for one year and Tk 50 crore as agriculture equipment loan for up to three years — as a refinance facility to BRAC at bank rate (5 per cent).
   Sharecroppers having up to six bighas (one bigha is equal to 0.13 hectare) of farmland and educational qualification below SSC level would be entitled to get a maximum credit of Tk 20,000 each at an interest of 10 per cent.
   Around 30 per cent of the crop loan would have to be repaid with interest in one year through equal monthly instalments while the rest 70 per cent repaid in two equal instalments after harvesting crops.
   BRAC, in association with Department of Agricultural Extension, will provide extension services and technological advises to the borrower sharecroppers. The expenditure for extension works will be met from BRAC’s own funding.
   ‘We’re happy that we could appoint a big organisation like BRAC to disburse the loan for the sharecroppers,’ BB governor Atiur Rahman said at the signing ceremony.
   He assured that the programme would be extended if the primary initiative became successful.
   Replying to a question, deputy governor Nazrul Huda said Bangladesh Bank had requested many other NGOs to operate the credit fund, but they declined while BRAC showed interest to work on the fund.
   Addressing the function, BRAC chairman FH Abed said BRAC would be able to cover if there was some losses while operating the credit programme.
   He added that BRAC had a plan to introduce crop insurance besides the programme as they already had meetings with the insurance companies in this regard.
   BRAC executive director Dr Mahbub Hossain said there would be no condition to be tagged with the agri-credit like procuring agriculture inputs from BRAC-specified suppliers.
   
   
   

   Citibank, NA Bangladesh has recently organised a workshop on SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) for Branch In-Charge, Foreign Exchange In-Charge and Officials involved in Letter of Credit Issuance & Payments of Private Commercial Banks for the southern region of the country. The aim of the seminar was to provide valuable insights on SWIFT application and its various aspects, a news release said.
   The workshop was held in Khulna and attended by participants from Khulna, Barisal, Jessore, Kushtia, Jhenaidah and Satkhira. Through such workshops, Citi hopes to provide better customer service by increasing customer knowledge and reducing day to day customer queries related to Letter of Credit issuance and payment.

The yen traded near seven-week highs against the euro and the dollar in Asian trade on Wednesday as falls on global stock markets spurred demand for safe-haven investments.
   The dollar slid to as low as 92.51 yen at one point, its weakest since July 13, while the euro declined to 131.47 yen, a level last seen on July 15.
   The selling of risk-sensitive assets ‘reflects the nervousness of investors about the sustainability of global economic recovery,’ Barclays Capital analysts wrote in a note.
   The yen, seen as a relatively safe investment in times of uncertainty or financial market turmoil, failed to keep its upward momentum as traders moved to take profits late in the Asian session.
   In late Tokyo trade the dollar was at 92.93 yen, against 92.96 in New York late Tuesday. The euro stood at 1.4226 dollars compared with 1.4219 and at 132.19 yen after 132.18.
   Against Asian currencies, the dollar rose to 1,249.80 South Korean won from 1,240.80 a day earlier, to 1.4439 Singapore dollars from 1.4393 and to 32.89 Taiwan dollars from 32.84.
   The greenback rose to 10,158 Indonesian rupiah from 10,081, to 48.89 Philippine pesos from 48.76 and to 34.03 Thai baht from 34.01.

New signs of economic recovery keep emerging, but with the American consumer still hamstrung by flat wages and job losses, it’s unclear those signs will last.
   Reports Tuesday showed the US manufacturing sector grew in August for the first time in 19 months. A gauge of future home sales surged in July to its highest point in more than two years. And auto sales — boosted by the Cash for Clunkers program — appeared in August to have marked their first year-over-year monthly gain since October 2007.
   On Wednesday, government data is expected to show that orders to US factories likely posted another increase in July, providing further evidence that the US economy is on the mend. Factory orders likely rose 2.2 per cent in July after a 0.4 per cent gain in June, according to economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters.
   The government also will revise its estimates on durable goods in Wednesday’s report and include a look at orders for nondurable goods, items such as energy products, food and chemicals.
   And the Labour Department is slated to release its revised estimate for productivity and a revised figure for unit labour costs.
   Productivity, the amount of output per hour of work, is expected to have surged to an annual rate of 6.4 per cent in the April-June quarter, according to economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters. That would be the biggest quarterly increase in almost six years and represent no change from the government’s initial estimate. Labour costs also are expected to have fallen at an annual rate of 5.8 per cent.
   Productivity is the single biggest factor determining living standards. Increases can help boost living standards because it means companies can pay their workers more with those wage increases financed by rising output. But struggling companies have been shoring up their bottom lines, not hiring more workers or paying them higher wages. At that means hopes for a sustained recovery remain clouded by a big concern: consumer spending, which fuels about 70 per cent of US economic activity.
   Americans fearful of job losses or who are still searching for work aren’t borrowing and spending enough to nourish a lasting rebound. That raises the vexing question of who will buy all the goods that manufacturers are producing?
   Scepticism about a recovery contributed to a nasty tumble on Wall Street Tuesday, following a month-long rally. All the major averages fell about 2 per cent, with the Dow Jones industrials sliding 185 points, as concerns grew about the fragility of the banking industry and the global economy.
   Stock market analysts noted that the manufacturing and housing gains were boosted by temporary government stimulus steps, including the Cash for Clunkers program, which has since expired. The clunkers program helped lift sales at Ford, Toyota and Honda in August, though Chrysler Group LLC and General Motors Co. withstood another month of falling sales.
   ‘People reviewed the numbers and said this type of demand is just not sustainable,’ said Tom di Galoma, head of US rates trading at Guggenheim Capital Markets LLC.
   At the same time, the National Association of Realtors said its seasonally adjusted index of sales contracts signed in July for previously occupied homes rose 3.2 per cent to 97.6. It was the sixth straight increase and 12 per cent above the same month last year.
   US construction spending dipped in July as weakness in non-residential building and government projects offset the best showing for home building in 10 months.
   At the moment, manufacturers may be the economy’s strongest pocket of strength. Yet even that might prove short-lived if demand doesn’t pick up, analysts said.
   The better-than-expected report from the Institute for Supply Management showed the highest number for its manufacturing index since June 2007. New customer orders jumped to a level not seen since late 2004.
   ‘Manufacturing will continue to expand,’ said Daniel Meckstroth, chief economist for the Manufacturers Alliance, a trade group. But he said capital investment likely will slip because plants have too much excess capacity.
   ‘You’re going to see ups and downs,’ Meckstroth said.
   Most manufacturers are simply restocking depleted stockpiles of goods — a process that will run its course within six months, said Joshua Shapiro, chief US economist at MFR Research.
   Beyond that, it’s hard to say how much the US manufacturing sector can expand as long as credit for consumers and businesses remains tight. If loans remain out of reach for many, shoppers and companies can’t spend and grow.
   Apart from the boost from the clunkers program, ‘we feel that the headwinds for consumer spending remain too brisk to expect much help on this front,’ Shapiro said.

One hundred and fifty years ago this week in a small Pennsylvania town an indefatigable businessman struck oil, changing the world forever.
   Boring a pipe deep into the Titusville ground, Edwin Drake drew black crude to the surface, in a process that would be copied all over the world and mark the dawn of the Petroleum Age.
   The method, inspired by salt extraction, would eventually create an industry that fuelled dramatic leaps in human development, as well as wars and environmental degradation.
   But the technique’s importance was initially felt in the lighting industry, as a replacement for whale and other fats used in lanterns.
   ‘The industry that developed was the kerosene lamp oil business,’ said Bill Stumpf, who, decked in period costume, operates a replica of the first pump at a Titusville museum.
   In the process of developing kerosene, Drake, who sported the military epithet of colonel to lend his project some credence, created gasoline — initially discarded as an unwanted by-product.
   But with the development of the internal combustion engine in Europe in the 1880s his technique acquired new importance, eventually making oil the bedrock of the global economy and the world’s most traded commodity.
   ‘That really ushered in the modern age of oil where oil has essentially enabled mankind to be mobile,’ said Tim Considine, a professor of energy economics at the University of Wyoming.
   But 150 years on, questions loom over the future of the fuel as oil prices spiked to record highs of over 140 dollars a barrel last year.
   ‘We’ll be seeing the effects of that price shock for the next five, seven years in consumers’ decisions about what car they buy, and how they drive,’ Considine said.
   The methods pioneered by Drake are now so successful that the world’s largest oil fields in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are beginning to show signs of decline, according to experts.
   Hope is now vested in new developments in Africa, Brazil, the Gulf of Mexico and Russia.
   ‘The key question is whether the production from this larger number of smaller fields will keep pace or offset the decline of what’s happening in the big giants,’ said Considine.
   Despite the gray clouds, Titusville’s 6,000 residents are basking in their town’s former glory—for this week, at least—with the anniversary prompting an influx of visitors.
   ‘The town has never been this loud, this animated. It’s usually pretty quiet,’ said Lauren, a waitress at the Blue Canoe Cafe.
   Pennsylvania’s petroleum glory days are behind it, with hundreds of thousands of wells drilled in the state over the last century and a half having exploited the vast majority of known reserves.
   But some residents are looking forward, hoping that the recent expansion of natural gas drilling and production in shale beneath the Pennsylvania earth will spark a new energy boom.
   According to local US congressman Glenn Thompson: ‘This gas shale is the Drake’s well of the 21st century.’

From lowly rickshaw drivers to restaurants and high-end boutiques, the dollar is a widely accepted currency in communist Vietnam—except in the eyes of the government.
   Thuy Hang, who owns a fashion shop in the centre of Hanoi, said having a supply of greenbacks in addition to the dong, the local currency, made perfect sense.
   ‘The dong is always losing value. Inflation is still high. It’s safer to have dollars,’ she says.
   Analysts trace this widespread attitude to psychological factors rooted in the legacy of hyper inflation in Vietnam about 20 years ago as well as in more recent economic uncertainty.
   ‘I sell my outfits in dong.... But sometimes I have foreign customers who pay me in dollars and I accept them. There’s no reason to refuse them,’ Hang said, adding that she plays by the rules and has no problem accepting local currency too.
   Officially, the dong is the only currency authorised for domestic transactions in Vietnam, where despite a booming market economy, communism remains the state ideology.
   Vietnam regularly experiences official shortages of dollars but ‘never a shortage of dollars’ on the black market, says a Hanoi gold dealer.
   While the official exchange rate is about 17,000 dong to the dollar the black market rate is around 18,380.
   One importer, who requested anonymity, complained that for two months it has been ‘impossible to buy dollars in the bank’ so he has turned to unofficial channels where he says he can buy as much US currency as he wants.
   This black market usually operates unhindered, but periodic crackdowns are a reminder of the government’s determination to keep economic control.
   For a while last year there was a shortage of dollars in the official market because of macro-economic imbalances, according to economists. Inflation peaked at 28.3 per cent month-on-month that August and the trade deficit hit a record 17 billion dollars for the year.
   Yet while the major economic indicators are more stable today, the Vietnamese economy and its currency still struggle to inspire confidence, according to merchants and economists.
   Inflation slowed year-on-year to 8.31 per cent in the first eight months of the year while in the same period the trade deficit fell an estimated 68 per cent year-on-year to 5.1 billion dollars, official figures show.
   Legislators have said they hope inflation can be kept below 10 per cent in 2009, while the government aims for economic growth of around five per cent.
   That is still far from Vietnam’s performance over the past decade. Growth reached 8.5 per cent in 2007.
   With the central bank holding significant reserves but reluctant to intervene too much, the state is not actually short of dollars but the Vietnamese and in particular, exporters, see the greenback as a safe haven and tend to hoard it, analysts say.
   The global economic crisis may have spurred some to move assets out of dong and into dollars and gold, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said.
   A significant easing of monetary policy, as the government attempted to stimulate the economy, combined with the prospect of a substantial fiscal stimulus, may have reinforced these trends, it said.
   A renewed widening of the trade deficit recently would have contributed too, the IMF added.
   But above all, the reasons for the dollar shortage may be subjective.
   Years of high inflation at the end of the 1980s and in the early 90s have left painful memories, analysts say. Inflation reached 874 per cent in 1986.
   ‘This psychology is difficult to reverse, even in countries such as Vietnam, which have enjoyed an extended period of tranquility,’ said IMF country representative Benedict Bingham.
   Recent price rises have not helped. Vietnamese, well-informed about monetary issues, are sensitive to the slightest hiccups in their economy, analysts say.
   The latest dollar shortage can be explained to a large extent by ‘psychological factors,’ said Cao Si Kiem, a former governor of the central bank.
   ‘Part of the population, and companies, fear inflation will not ease, that the dollar will appreciate and the dong will fall,’ he says.
   Rather than clamping down on foreign exchange transactions and driving the market underground, governments facing this situation need to gradually build ‘confidence in the domestic currency through sustained sound policies that erase the fears of the past,’ the IMF’s Bingham said.
   But escaping the ‘dollarised’ economy will take time.
   ‘We have to sensibly improve the situation... notably confidence in the dong,’ said Kiem.
   Others doubt Vietnam’s dong can ever win confidence, among them the importer.
   Officials ‘will never be able to eliminate the black market for the dollar,’ he says. ‘The dong is very weak and is not certain to appreciate. You can’t do business with dong anywhere. With the dollar, everything is easier.’

Top mobile phone maker Nokia on Wednesday bolstered its smartphone line-up to better battle Apple and announced a new location-based service with social networking site Facebook.
   The announcements at the ‘Nokia World’ event in Stuttgart are the latest riposte from the Finnish firm, which has lagged Apple’s innovativeness as the focus of cellphone businesses shifts to services and software.
   Nokia has been looking for business opportunities in offering services like music downloads or games to cellphone users as the handset market mature, but so far its offerings have had limited traction. Nokia on Wednesday unveiled its X6 and X3 music phones, which will go on sale in the fourth quarter, priced at 450 euros ($641) and 115 euros, respectively. The X6 can play 35 hours of music and has 32 gigabytes of internal memory.
   The company also unveiled a new version of its N97 smartphone, which will be priced at 450 euros, and said it was on the verge of going over 2 million units in sales of the original N97.
   Nokia said its new top-end N900 phone will sell for 500 euros. The phone, which has computer-like functions, is the Finnish firm’s first phone to use Linux software. The unveiling of the phone last Thursday helped to lift its shares 11 percent for the week.
   Nokia said its new Booklet 3G, which marks its entry into netbook computers, will go on sale for about 575 euros and run on Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system.
   With the move to making laptops, Nokia is crossing the border between two converging industries in the opposite direction to Apple, which entered the phone industry in 2007 with the iPhone.
   Nokia has seen its profit margins drop over the last few quarters as handset demand has slumped, and analysts have worried that entering the PC industry, where margins are traditionally razor-thin, could hurt Nokia’s profits further.
   However, Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesio said that Nokia had no choice.
   ‘Nokia had to do it. You see more and more PC guys getting into the mobile operators’ shelves. Its kind of the counterattack, its not just defensive,’ said Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi.

Square Hospitals Ltd and BRAC Bank have signed a corporate healthcare agreement in Dhaka recently.
   Under the agreement, premium banking customer of BRAC Bank will get privileged coverage of health check-ups, medical consultations, diagnostic services, and outdoor and in-patient services at a special rate, a news release said.
   Square Hospitals head of marketing and business development Faisal Zaman and BRAC Bank head of retail banking Firoz Ahmed Khan signed the agreement on behalf of their respective sides.
   BRAC Bank head of liability and wealth management Md Ariful Islam Chowdhury and business development manager Mohammad Aminul Haque, and Square Hospitals marketing business development coordinator MA Jalil Khan and marketing and business development executive Maruf Ahmed were present in the signing ceremony.

Rahimafrooz CNG has launched an Eid promotion campaign, under which a person will receive minimum Tk 3,000 worth Quikfill CNG for free with every vehicle conversion.
   The Rahimafrooz managing director, Mudasir M Moin, inaugurated the campaign on Monday at the company’s head office in Dhaka. Director Shahzad Akhter and general manger Anisur Rahman were also present, a news release said.
   All the consumers, who will convert their vehicles on CNG from Rahimafrooz CNG, will receive a free Eid gift vouchers of Tk 3,000 to Tk 6,000 to be redeemed at all the Quikfill outlets. The campaign will remain valid till the Eid day.

Dhaka Bank Training Institute has arranged an eight-day training course on international trade, finance and foreign exchange recently at the institute at Motijheel in Dhaka. Twenty-six officers or executives from different branches and head office of the bank attended the course, a news release said.
   The basic purpose of the course was to develop a group of human resources from different branches and divisions with the knowledge, skill and technicalities of global trade business, finance and foreign exchange.
   Dhaka Bank managing director Khondker Fazle Rashid addressed the valediction session as the chief guest and distributed certificates among the participants.
   Principal of the training institute Shamshad Begum and representatives from the participants also spoke in the program.