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Economy

USDA lowers rice production forecast for Bangladesh    

US Department of Agriculture has slightly lowered its rice production forecast for Bangladesh to 3.46 crore tonnes for 2014-15 from earlier estimate of 3.48 crore tonnes due to decline in boro rice production. pariza rice panicleThe USDA said the production would decline in the boro areas as farmers had been shifting to other crops due to higher production cost of rice. ‘For marketing year 2014-15 (May to April), Post’s estimate for total rice area and production is revised down to 11.8 million hectares and 34.6 million...

Investment in private sector may shrink on BB stance    

The move by Bangladesh Bank (BB) for maintaining higher cash reserve requirement (CRR) to absorb access liquidity from the banking system would fail to contain inflationary pressure rather it would adversely hamper private sector investment in the country. The monetary policy for the first half of current fiscal (2014-15) may fail to achieve the target of taming inflation to 6.5 percent and ensuring the private sector credit growth of 16.5 percent, set for the first half of FY2014-15. The Unnayan OnneshanUnnayan-Onneshan (UO)...

NBR fails to achieve downsized revenue target for FY14

The National Board of Revenue is going to set a strategic plan today to achieve its revenue collection target for the current fiscal year of 2014-15 in the backdrop of a significant shortfall in collection in the last fiscal year, NBR officials said. They said that the NBR fell short of its revised target by around Tk 4,500 crore in the FY 2013-14 as the VAT and income tax wings of the revenue board failed to achieve the target set for the year. nbr 222In this context, the revenue board called a meeting to prepare the plan and invited all its...

Nearly 30 commercial banks fail to meet spread target  

Some 28 scheduled commercial banks have failed to keep their spreads within the targeted 5 per cent in the  last month (June) of the  just concluded fiscal year 2013–14. The banks’ average spread stood at 5.31 per cent in June, which was the highest rate during the last fiscal. Spread refers to the difference in borrowing and lending rates of financial institutions in nominal terms. The average spreads of nationalised and specialised banks, however, remained within the central bank’s prescribed rate, barring BASIC Bank. But the situation is a little different in cases of the private commercial banks (PCBs) and foreign commercial banks (FCBs), the rates of which were over 5 per cent, reports the Independent. ...

Record $ 1.48b remittance in July  

Migrant workers last month sent home $1.48 billion, the highest inflow of remittance in a single month in Bangladesh’s history. The record flow of remittance could be attributed to celebrations of Eid-ul-Fitr in the last week of July, the country’s biggest festival. The amount is 15.19 percent higher than in the previous month and 19.67 percent from July last year, the central bank said in a statement yesterday. remittanceLast month’s receipts surpassed October 2012’s $1.45 billion, the highest for a single month previously, reports ...

WB changes approach to tackling corruption in BD    

After the much-publicised Padma bridge episode, the World Bank (WB) has now realigned its approach to tackling corruption in projects. Previously, the multilateral lender would wash its hands off projects as soon as allegations of corruption surfaced. But now, in essence, it will carry on with the projects but will work with local authorities to identify and snuff out the issues. “When evidence of corruption comes to light, its response should not be to disengage, but to engage differently,” it said in its Country Assistance Strategy Progress Report. wb<...
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