Orascom keen to invest in BD banking sector
bdnews24.com, Dhaka

Orascom Telecom that owns Banglalink seeks to diversify investment into the banking sector in Bangladesh, said its visiting chairman Tuesday.
The Egyptian company has also expressed interest in investing in cement, fertiliser and tourism sectors. Orascom has so far invested $700 million in telecoms in Bangladesh, the company's chairman Naguib Sawiris told reporters Tuesday.
Orascom plans to spend a further $350 million this year on network expansion and infrastructure.
Sawiris who arrived in Dhaka Tuesday spoke to reporters at the Banglalink office and had a meeting with BTRC chairman Manzurul Alam at Radisson.
Sawiris said: "Besides telecommunications, we want to invest in Bangladesh in other sectors. We are interested in investing in the banking sector and have already applied for a licence to run banking business."
On the telecoms sector, he said the number of Banglalink subscribers would cross the 10 million mark this year.
"There are problems regarding spectrum and tax. Tax has to be reduced," he said.
Sawiris claimed that none in Banglalink was involved in VoIP business. If anybody are found involved, action will be taken against him, he said.
After the meeting with Sawiris, Manzurul Alam said that Orascom had expressed interest to invest in the submarine cable and optical fibre network in Bangladesh.

MS rod prices coming down soon: Zillur
BSS, Dhaka

Commerce and education Adviser Dr Hossain Zillur Rahman has said the prices of MS rods are coming down gradually and slip further in the coming days due to some steps taken by the government.
He was talking to the waiting reporters after an emergency review meeting on the recent price trend of MS rod at the commerce ministry office today.
The meeting took a number of decisions on the basis of eight- point recommendations given by an inquiry committee on soaring rod prices and reviewed measures taken by the commerce ministry to pull down the soaring prices.
The meeting took some fresh measures that include creation of a competitive market for imported scraps, removal of disparities of duties on various ship scraps, easing import of chemicals required for preparation of MS rods.
The meeting also decided that the ministry of commerce and the ministry of industries would jointly take a long-term plan for overall development of the country's scrap sector.
It was also decided to hold a meeting of all stake holders of the MS rod industry to implement this plan.
The meeting was attended by commerce secretary Firoz Ahmed, additional secretry Golam Mustakim,TCB chairman Mohammad Ziaul Islam,DG WTO Cell Fazlur Rahman and representatives of the industries ministry, shipping, housing and public works and land ministries, NBR and Chittagong Port Authority.

 Dhaka stocks end nearly flat
bdnews24.com, Dhaka

Dhaka stocks ended almost flat Wednesday with indices and turnover edging down.
Sell-offs in banks continued, with pharmaceuticals joining the club Wednesday. Non-bank financial institutions enjoyed a buying spree, an official with brokerage house IDLC Securities told bdnews24.com.
Investors also opted for privately managed mutual funds as well as some insurers, added the official.
Market watchers said the flat closing was logical as the market is running short of liquidity.
"Investors are not getting access to funds so they have to opt for mixed portfolios of buying and selling to trade," DSE vice president Ahmad Rashid Lali told bdnews24.com.
He added that the bourse would see more of flat trading because of the liquidity crisis.
The DGEN or general index remained relatively stable across the day and slipped 6.48 points or 0.21 percent to close at 3019.75.
The DSI or all-share price index ended on 2561.72, falling 1.18 points or 0.04 percent from the previous day.
The bourse's blue chip DSE-20 shed 17.81 points or 0.73 percent to 2403.95.
Turnover edged down to Tk 3.50 billion from Tuesday's Tk 3.70 billion, with 25,520,358 shares changing hands.
Of the traded issues, 79 gained and 145 declined, with 13 issues holding steady.
AB Bank topped the turnover board and fell 0.70 percent to Tk 4091.50.
AIMS 1st Mutual Fund ended on Tk 15.65, up 6.60 percent.
Market major Square Pharmaceuticals declined 1.40 percent to Tk 5071.50 following Tuesday's gains.
Z category scrip UCBL continued to gain from the previous day, rising 7.47 percent to Tk 5681 while Union Capital returned from Tuesday's losses to end on Tk 118.40, up 12.76 percent.
Among the other scrips on the turnover board, Grameen Mutual Fund One, Lanka Bangla Finance, IDLC and United Leasing also advanced.
Apex Adelchi Footwear lost after investors locked in profits.
Indices on the Chittagong Stock Exchange ended lower, despite huge gains in mutual funds and leasing & finance, while ICT, paper and footwear shares suffered the largest decline.
The CSCX or selective categories index fell 25.27 points or 0.45 percent to 5522.81 while the CASPI or all-share price index ended on 8584.39, losing 19.11 points or 0.45 percent.
The CSE-30 blue-chip index decreased 24.81points or 0.32 percent to 7617.23.
Turnover on the port city's bourse edged up to Tk 468.98 million from Tk 424.96 million the previous day from 3,511,610 traded shares.

 Citibank offers DESA 'CitiConnect' online bill collection services
BSS, Dhaka

Dhaka Electric Supply Authority (DESA) and Citibank, NA Bangladesh today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to facilitate online bill collection of DESA through CitiConnect.
Under the new arrangement, customers of DESA will be able to receive their bills at CitiConnect website and make online payments through Citi's innovative payment gateway.
Rafiul Alam, Secretary of DESA and Khondoker Rashed Maqsood, Director and Head of Global Transaction Services, Citi group Bangladesh signed the agreement on behalf of their respective organizations.
Brigadier General M Nazrul Hasan, Chairman of DESA, Ivo Distelbrink, Managing Director and Regional Sales Head for Treasury and Trade Solutions for Citi Global Transaction Services (GES) and senior officials from both the organizations were present.
"The introduction of a faster and more convenient collection system will give us a great competitive advantage. CitiConnect will allow our customers not only better manage their time and efficiency, but also enable them to streamline their bill collection, reporting and accounting processes," said Nazrul Hasan.
Speaking on the occasion, Ivo Distelbrink said, "CitiConnect is widely used by our clients in Asia specially the government institutions to collect taxes, customs duties and utility payments from their customers".
Citi's Global Transaction Services offers integrated cash management, trade, and securities and fund services to multinational corporations, financial institutions and public sector organizations around the world.
With a network spanning over 100 countries, Citi's Global Transaction Services supports over 65,000 clients.

 Asian economies holding up despite an ailing US economy
AFP, Singapore

Asia's strong economic growth will persist despite an ailing US economy as the region diversifies its export markets and a new breed of young and wealthy citizens drive consumption, investment bank Merrill Lynch said Wednesday.
Inflation is a bigger risk to the region than a slowdown induced by a recession in the United States, the world's biggest economy, said Timothy Bond, Merrill Lynch's chief Asia economist.
Despite a global credit crunch resulting from a crisis in the US housing market, Asian economies expanded 9.5 percent and China grew 11.5 percent in the second half of last year, he said at a Merrill Lynch conference in Singapore.
In the first quarter of this year, the region is expected to grow a slower but still robust 9.0 percent, and China 10.5 percent, he said.
"I think we have a lot of evidence to support the decoupling view," he said, referring a view that Asian economies are now in a better position to withstand the impact of a US recession, unlike in the past.
Bond also noted that while Asian exports to the United States were flat last year, shipments of made-in-Asia goods to the rest of the world expanded 19 percent.
"I think the message here is that there is a lot of strength in the global economy despite some very clear headwinds in the US economy, and this is a region that exports to the world, not just the United States," he said.
Asian exports to Europe have been growing 25-28 percent annually due mainly to the stronger euro currency which makes Asian goods cheaper, he said, adding that intra-Asian trade has also increased.
"Europe has been the number one driver of Asian exports over the past few years, not the United States," Bond said.
Any slowdown in exports should be offset by an acceleration in consumption, powered by the emergence of younger and wealthier Asians who, unlike their parents, would like to spend their money, Merrill Lynch experts said.
Jyoti Jaipuria, Merrill Lynch's head of equity research in India, said 50 percent of India's more than one billion population are below the age of 30 and many of them are becoming richer and are more likely to spend.
In India "the consumer is learning to blow up money just like in the US," he said.
"In the last five years, you have seen people become wealthier in this region... There's many more millionaires in Asia now than there were five years ago," said Mark Matthews, chief Asia equities strategist at Merrill Lynch.
"So even if their costs are going up and they are complaining about the gasoline (and) their food, the fact is that they are living in nicer places, they are going on longer holidays and they are spending more."

 G8 labour meet calls for attention to
vulnerable workers

AFP, Tokyo

Labour officials from the Group of Eight rich nations called on Tuesday for efforts to help vulnerable workers in the globalised economy, but a top union leader said the meeting did not address key issues.
Top labour officials from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States met for three days in Niigata, 300 kilometres (180 miles) northwest of Tokyo.
The conference issued a joint statement calling for efforts to "strengthen the social dimension of globalisation."
It listed priority areas, including devising employment policies that address "the needs of vulnerable workers and areas" and coping with climate change.
The statement was criticised by Guy Ryder, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, the largest union in the world.
He said union leaders who went to the Niigata talks wanted a focus on inequality in developed countries, including the rise in the number of part-time workers who earn less.
"The labour ministers should be talking about this, trying to accept that inequality is wrong," Ryder told AFP in Tokyo after the talks. "They even have trouble in recognising the problem. Why? Because they know very well that this inequality is a direct consequence of their own policy choices," he said.
Ministers or senior officials are holding a series of meetings in Japan leading up to the July 7-9 summit of leaders in the northern hot spring resort of Toyako.

 EU-Latin America trade talks hostage to WTO negotiations
AFP, Brussels

The European Union aims to give a new boost to free-trade negotiations with Latin America at a summit Friday and Saturday in Lima, but the discussions remain eclipsed by long-struggling WTO talks.
"Lima will give us the opportunity to take stock of negotiations launched in 2007 with Central America and the Andean Community and where we are with Mercosur," said EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner.
"We trust that if we continue to make progress we will be able to conclude the agreements toward end of 2009," she added.
Although all three sets of negotiations face their own tough political hurdles, the so-called Doha round of WTO free-trade negotiations currently looms large over all of them as the talks enter a crunch period.
"At the centre of all of these challenges is the possibility of a Doha deal in 2008," said EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson.
WTO members are struggling to make a breakthrough in free- trade talks this month in order to clinch a broader agreement this year, widely seen as the last chance before the US administration and the European Commission change.
With trade ministers focusing squarely on Doha negotiations in recent years, long-running free-trade talks between the EU and Mercosur-which were supposed to be concluded in 2004 -- have remained on the backburner.
Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay make up Mercosur along with Bolivia and Chile as associate members.
In the talks at the World Trade Organisation, the EU wants Latin American countries to make their markets more accessible to its goods and services while Latin American nations are seeking greater sales outlets in Europe for their agricultural products.
But the talks have stalled at the WTO, especially in the face of tough demands from Brazil and as well as because of differences over tropical products such as bananas.
"I hope we can use (the) summit to give renewed momentum to the Doha negotiation which is at a crunch point in Geneva," Mandelson said.
"Around the table ... in Lima will be some of the countries who can make a key contribution to making that happen," he added.
Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said at the end of April that an EU-Mercosur free-trade agreement would not be possible before the first half of 2010, when Spain holds the EU's rotating presidency.