Under the four-year deal, the joint venture, led by Korean Expressway Corporation, will supervise the construction of the main bridge and river training works.
Shafiqul Islam, project director of the Padma bridge project, and Cho Nam-Min, team leader of the joint venture, signed the agreement at the Setu Bhaban. Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader, Korean Ambassador in Dhaka Lee Yun-young and the chairman of the technical evaluation committee were present, reports the Daily Star.
The advantage enjoyed by Bangladesh in readymade garment (RMG) sector cannot be taken for granted, and the country’s competitiveness in the apparel export market may erode in the long run if working conditions do not improve, says the World Bank (WB) in its Bangladesh Development Update October 2014.
In the immediate future, stronger attention is needed to swiftly complete the transition in the Bangladesh garment industry, feel authors of the report. According to them, “much more needs to be done for effective implementation of wage increases and the new labor legislations, recruiting more factory inspectors and complete building inspections followed by swift remediation measures such as relocation of closed factories.”
Abul Hasan, a 30-year-old fisherman, was drinking tea at a restaurant here when he was approached by two men who said they could help him get a good job at a factory in Malaysia.
He was told that he could pay for his passage after he started working, he said, so he followed the men to a nearby village to “see some brochures.”

The next thing he remembers was waking up, nauseated, alongside more than a dozen other men aboard a fishing boat. Six guards armed with knives stood watch. “I knew I was in troub...
Bangladesh’s global ranking has slipped in ease of doing business, standing at 173rd position among 189 nations as the country’s performance deteriorated on indicators, including starting business, paying taxes and enforcing contract where it was near the rock bottom.
According to the Doing Business Report 2014 – the flagship report of the World Bank and International Finance Corporation, out of 10 indicators, Bangladesh slipped on six, remained unchanged in three and one moved up.

Among the south Asian countries,...