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Awami govt set to destroy backbone of Bangladesh economy

I think its a bit unfair to blame AL for the slowdown in the export. There is a global slowdown, so it was bound to happen. Good news is that the export still grew, and the growth was only 3.5 percent short of the target.

3.5% is big, shows how corrupted this goverment actually is, sheikh rehana was greatly involded in the share market scandal same as in 1997.
 
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Impact on Bangladesh economy:
  • Cost of electricity, gas, oil and transportation has gone up tremendously.
  • Bangladesh export will lose its competitiveness further.
  • With diminishing export competitiveness FDI prospect will be less attractive.
  • With rising production and transport cost Bangladesh export will be expansive and will suffer in competition.
  • Increasing cost and decreasing competitiveness will open the door for flooding with Indian products.

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Trade deficit swells to $5.19b in 5 months

image A file photo shows employees working at a garment factory in Dhaka. The country’s trade deficit soared by 30.69 per cent to $5.19 billion in the first five months of the current fiscal year compared to the same period of 2010-11 financial year. — New Age

Exchange rate of dollar hits Tk 83-mark

Aminul Islam and AKM Zamir Uddin

The country’s trade deficit soared by 30.69 per cent to $5.19 billion in the first five months of the current fiscal year compared to the same period of 2010-11 financial year putting further pressure on foreign exchange reserve and value of taka.

The exchange rate of taka against dollar hit a new record of Tk 83.30 in inter-bank trading on Wednesday, slipping almost every day since October 14 because of shortage of the greenbacks.

According to a provisional data of Bangladesh Bank released on Wednesday, the country’s import payment surged to $14.90 billion against exports worth $9.70 billion in July-November in the current 2011-12 fiscal year.

The trade gap was $3.97 billion in July-November in 2010-11 financial year whereas the total trade gap that fiscal year was $ 7.328 billion, a record high.

Bangladesh Bank officials said that despite the fall in import of food grains in the first five months of the current fiscal year the trade gap soared mainly because of huge import of fuel oils by the government for the costly rental power plants.

BB data showed that import grew by 21.65 per cent, export by 17.33 per cent while 9.28 per cent in July-November this financial year compared to the same period of the previous year.

‘The high growth in import has put tremendous pressure on the forex reserve, brining down the total reserve to $9.59 billion on Tuesday from $11.32 billion in March, 2011,’ said a BB official.

The Bangladeshi currency, taka, that has been taking a beating against dollar has so far lost around 15 per cent in value in last one year.

BB data showed that settlement of letters of credit for import of food grains decreased by 22.63 per cent during July-November to $3.58 billion from $4.63 billion during the same period of the last financial year.

But LC settlement for fuel import soared by 92.44 per cent to $ 2.20 billion in the first five months of the current financial year compared to that of the corresponding period of the last FY2010-11.

BB data showed that the indicative exchange rate of dollar hovered around Tk 82 on Wednesday while the rate in inter-bank exchange went up to Tk 83.30 as One Bank sold one dollar with that rate.

On trade deficit, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies research director Zaid Bakht told New Age on Wednesday although the country’s trade balance remained negative all the time, the deficit this fiscal was beyond tolerable level.

‘The situation occurred as high import growth, especially fuel oil import, could not be covered by less-than-expected export and remittance growth,’ he said.

Besides, he said, the inflow of foreign loans and grants remained low this fiscal year. ‘The government needs to negotiate strongly with foreign lenders to get desired loans as the export might not grow to the expected level because of global economic crisis,’ he said.

New Age | Newspaper
 
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BB warns banking system may face similar fate of Europe

Staff Correspondent

Bangladesh Bank has warned that the country’s banking system could face similar fate of the monetary crises of some European banks if the government continues with its heavy borrowing from the banks.

The central bank also observed that a cut in the subsidy for fertiliser, irrigation and power has increased food inflation in recent months, pushing up the prices of commodities.

‘It is essential that there is proper coordination between Monetary Policy [of the central bank] and the arrangement of funds for the government’s expenditure for tackling inflation and foreign trade balance,’ said a Bangladesh Bank working paper presented at a meeting of the parliamentary standing committee on finance on Monday.

‘The credit availability in the private sector has not been hampered that much following the sudden high growth of government borrowings from the banking sector. But the risk [of slowing down credit availability] will be heightened if the government continues with heavy borrowing,’ it warned.

The BB observed that the primary dealer banks that are obliged to buy government treasury bonds are already overburdened and their liquidity position is in risks as there was no secondary bond market in the country.

‘The government has to secure the inflow of foreign loans and grants as well as immediately find alternatives to overburdening the banks by borrowing from them. The recent example of adverse impact of this situation [overburdening the banks] is the banking system of some of the European countries,’ it said.

BB officials said some of the European banks bought sovereign bonds of some of debt-ridden countries like Greece but the banks are under threat of possible collapse because of the default by the countries.

The BB said a recent bumper rice production did not put any positive impact on domestic market because of reduction of government subsidies on fuel and fertilizer.

The BB statement said that the cost of local production for food grains went up in recent months because of the subsidy cuts.

Under the circumstances, the country’s inflation prevailed in double digit in the last year. The point-to-point inflation in December 2011 stood at 10.63 per cent from that of the 11.58 per cent in November.

It expected that soaring inflation will be stable in the coming months and come down to single-digit in the last quarter of the current 2011-12 financial year.

‘The stable and downward trend in the global commodity prices will have similar impact on domestic market,’ BB said, hoping the trend would simmer off the rising inflation.

New Age | Newspaper
 
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BB warns banking system may face similar fate of Europe

Staff Correspondent

Bangladesh Bank has warned that the country’s banking system could face similar fate of the monetary crises of some European banks if the government continues with its heavy borrowing from the banks.

The central bank also observed that a cut in the subsidy for fertiliser, irrigation and power has increased food inflation in recent months, pushing up the prices of commodities.

‘It is essential that there is proper coordination between Monetary Policy [of the central bank] and the arrangement of funds for the government’s expenditure for tackling inflation and foreign trade balance,’ said a Bangladesh Bank working paper presented at a meeting of the parliamentary standing committee on finance on Monday.

‘The credit availability in the private sector has not been hampered that much following the sudden high growth of government borrowings from the banking sector. But the risk [of slowing down credit availability] will be heightened if the government continues with heavy borrowing,’ it warned.

The BB observed that the primary dealer banks that are obliged to buy government treasury bonds are already overburdened and their liquidity position is in risks as there was no secondary bond market in the country.

‘The government has to secure the inflow of foreign loans and grants as well as immediately find alternatives to overburdening the banks by borrowing from them. The recent example of adverse impact of this situation [overburdening the banks] is the banking system of some of the European countries,’ it said.

BB officials said some of the European banks bought sovereign bonds of some of debt-ridden countries like Greece but the banks are under threat of possible collapse because of the default by the countries.

The BB said a recent bumper rice production did not put any positive impact on domestic market because of reduction of government subsidies on fuel and fertilizer.

The BB statement said that the cost of local production for food grains went up in recent months because of the subsidy cuts.

Under the circumstances, the country’s inflation prevailed in double digit in the last year. The point-to-point inflation in December 2011 stood at 10.63 per cent from that of the 11.58 per cent in November.

It expected that soaring inflation will be stable in the coming months and come down to single-digit in the last quarter of the current 2011-12 financial year.

‘The stable and downward trend in the global commodity prices will have similar impact on domestic market,’ BB said, hoping the trend would simmer off the rising inflation.

New Age | Newspaper

anti govt hate mongering :taz:
 
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Govt feels pinch of forex crunch

Shakhawat Hossain

The government has started feeling the pinch of foreign currency shortage in many areas, including difficulties in importing fuel oils needed for powering water pumps in the current irrigation season, officials said.

Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation, the state-owned petroleum importer and distributor, requested the state-run banks over last fortnight to make payment for two fuel oil consignments.

But Janata and Agrani banks refused to foot the oil import bills because of shortage of US dollar, they said.



Besides the direct impact, the county is facing many other indirect effects of the lingering crisis of greenback, experts said.

‘Continued devaluation of local currency, high inflation, shrinking foreign currency reserve and slowing business activities are

plaguing the economy,’ said Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies executive director MK Mujeri.


BPC chairman Abu Bakar Siddique in a letter to the energy division and the ministry of finance on Wednesday stated that the corporation was facing difficulties in keeping up fuel oil imports.

He blamed two state-owned commercial banks for the problems.

The letter pointed out that uninterrupted import of fuel oils was necessary for irrigation in the current boro season.

Boro is the largest rice crop of the country and its cultivation depends heavily on irrigation.

A major portion of the country’s annual diesel consumption goes to irrigation during the period between January and April when farmers run thousands of pumps in rice fields.

The BPC chairman pointed out that the corporation needed to import at least 15 fuel oil consignments for the current boro season.

But Agrani and Janata banks turned down the BPC’s repeated requests since December 28, 2011, to clear $50 million import payments for two consignments, he added.

Agrani Bank deputy managing director Mofazzal Hossain told New Age on Thursday that shortage of dollar coupled with a technical problem forced them to stop payment for fuel oil imports temporarily.

The problems will be over soon, he hoped adding that the government guarantee against the BPC’s fuel oil imports was almost exhausted.

‘The bank can clear the oil import bills once the government increases the limit of guarantee,’ he added.

BPC is facing bankruptcy due to growing import of fuel oils to feed oil-guzzling rental power plants despite three rounds of upward adjustment in the prices of octane, petrol, diesel, furnace oil and kerosene in the last four months.

The country’s fuel oil consumption had been hovering around 3 million tonnes a year until it jumped to 4.8 million tonnes in the last fiscal year due to the government policy of running quick rental power plants to tackle power outages.

The amount is likely soar to 6.8 million tonnes in the current fiscal year as nearly three dozens of rental power plants would supply electricity to the national grid by next June.

Former caretaker government adviser Akbar Ali Khan suggested that the government should handle the macro-economic issues more carefully so that the foreign currency crisis could not affect the real sector badly.

He said the government should immediately suspend unnecessary imports to save the greenback.

New Age | Newspaper
 
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Awami regime could not even provide loan guarantee for $200 million, what a sorry state of macro stablity of Bangladesh economy! It is also interesting to note that secular Awami regime is surviving on Islamic Development Bank loans. What a deceptive and moronic regime.

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BPC awaits BB guarantee for $200m loan

Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) is seeking guarantee from Bangladesh Bank (BB) against its proposed bid to receive a US$ 200 million syndicated loan from three international banks to import petroleum, reports UNB.

The banks, operating globally, are Standard Chartered Bank, Citi Bank NA, and the HSBC.

"We sent a request to Bangladesh Bank about two weeks ago urging it to give a guarantee against our proposed loan of $ 200 million. Now, we're waiting for its guarantee," said BPC Chairman Abubakar Siddique.

The proposed loan will be taken for six months with a 5.3 per cent interest rate.

Official sources said this will be the first syndicated loan from the three international banks to the BPC, responsible for the import of petroleum and its marketing across the country.

The recent sharp rise in petroleum use for costly rental power plants has prompted the BPC to rush to the three banks as it experiences severe foreign currency shortage to pay in cash to its fuel oil suppliers.

Last year, the BPC imported about 4.8 million tonnes of petroleum to meet the domestic requirement. But, the demand continues to go up by 1.9 million tonnes a year, putting a huge pressure on the BPC.

The demand has been rising with such a trend for the last two years following the government move to install many liquid fuel-based rental plants. During the period, the government signed 45 contracts for new power plants of which two-thirds are liquid fuel-based ones.

BPC officials said the proposed loan of $ 200 million will not be good enough to meet the total hard currency requirement.

Besides, the BPC has already got assurance to get another $ 2.0 billion for the current calendar year from Islamic Trade and Finance Cooperation (ITFC), an autonomous entity of Islamic Development Bank (IDB), at an interest rate of 5.0 per cent.

The IDB provided a loan of $ 1.41 billion to the BPC at an interest rate of 5.30 last year, the BPC officials said.

The IDB provides loan for every Arabic year and the BPC counts the date as per international calendar year.


Recently, the BPC has settled premium on diesel, octane, jet fuel that will be imported from Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC), Middle East Oil Refinery (MIDDOR) of Egypt, Petronas Trading Corporation (Petco) of Malaysia, Philippines National Oil Company (PNOC) of the Philippines.

BPC awaits BB guarantee for $200m loan
 
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Our textile sector has been badly hit by this global economic situation due to lack of orders, thus the shortage of foreign currency. It is recovering, the worst part is over and it is recovering slowly. Now stop with the fanboyism hating of the government. Our finance minister is a smart man.
 
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Our finance minister is a smart man.

That's where the problem is actually, it's because of his educational background
and his fairytale friend circles of elite ecnomists he usually ends up thinking he's too smart.

As a result he fails to understand, he's running a country and that is not a place
where one leads his days weaving shrewd experimentations. That actually makes
him quite dumb to begin with.
 
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That's where the problem is actually, it's because of his educational background
and his fairytale friend circles of elite ecnomists he usually ends up thinking he's too smart.

As a result he fails to understand, he's running a country and that is not a place
where one leads his days weaving shrewd experimentations. That actually makes
him quite dumb to begin with.

throughout all this turmoil in the global world, our economy is still growing at 6%. Thats a pretty good achievement i'd say.
 
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^^
Thanks to consistent growth in exports. Whats the status of spinning mills these days?
 
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^^
Thanks to consistent growth in exports. Whats the status of spinning mills these days?

Its doing good, the mills are running at full capacity , same with the garments. That is why i said the dollar problem will soon be restored, Bangladesh bank will get it's foreign currency withing the next few months.
 
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Bangladesh ............from Switzerland to Zimbabwe .. sad.... down hasina..:tdown:
 
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