The beaches are empty in the resort town of Cox’s Bazar, by the Bay of Bengal on Bangladesh’s southern coast. Scores of hotels line a narrow stretch of road parallel to the waterfront, but there are no guests. A handful of desperate hawkers harass the occasional straggling tourist.
“We’re bleeding,” said Amjad Hossain, an official at the upscale hotel The Cox Today. “A few more days of this and we may have to start laying off staff.”
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Top diplomats of the Dhaka missions of European Union (EU) member states on Wednesday discussed difficulties to develop trade and investment in Bangladesh.
They raised the issues of businesses at the newly established European Union Business Council Bangladesh, which held its first meeting in Dhaka on Wednesday, according to an official press release.
The concerns and suggestions of the council will be shared with government representatives at the meeting of the trade sub-group of the EU-Bangladesh Joint Commission scheduled to be in Dhaka on 27 February.
T...
FOR the past month Bangladesh, a country of nearly 160m people, has (yet again) been paralysed. The opposition leader, Khaleda Zia, has been confined to a party office in the capital, Dhaka. Her Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has been staging a nationwide blockade of roads, railways and waterways. The trigger for the unrest was a banned protest to mark the anniversary on January 5th of last year’s election, in which the incumbent Awami League, led by the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, was re-elected easily thanks to an opposition boycott. Nearly 50 people have been killed and more than 10,000 opposition activists arrested. BNP leaders are mostly in jail, in exile or in hiding, and face criminal charges that will probably bar them from running in the next election. This week events a...
Kuwait Ambassador to Dhaka Ali Ahmad Ebraheem Al-Dafairi today said his country was considering a proposal from Dhaka to carryout feasibility studies to install a petroleum refinery in Bangladesh.
“The matter is under process,” a foreign office statement quoted the envoy as saying as he called on Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali at his office here.
It said Dafairi’s comment came as the minister referred to the issue of the earlier-proposed feasibility study for the refinery.
The statement said they discu...
Bangladesh's economy may grow by 6.3 percent in the current fiscal year, a Bloomberg survey said yesterday.
The result for Bangladesh's economy is the median of four economists' forecasts surveyed by the US media organisation.
In a previous survey, the economists also predicted the same level of economic growth for fiscal 2014-15.
They however cut down their growth forecast for the next fiscal year to 6.45 percent in the new survey from 6.6 percent earlier.
The survey was conducted between January 23 and January 28.
The World Bank for...
“Disconnection of the districts [from the capital] has become dangerous for the economy. It is the most concerning thing. We will have to keep the districts functional," Muhith said at a press conference at Bangladesh Secretariat in Dhaka.
"The impact of hartals in Dhaka is not significant, but the impact in the district level is alarming," he added.
The economy is paying a heavy price due to the bl...
“Disconnection of the districts [from the capital] has become dangerous for the economy. It is the most concerning thing. We will have to keep the districts functional," Muhith said at a press conference at Bangladesh Secretariat in Dhaka.
"The impact of hartals in Dhaka is not significant, but the impact in the district level is alarming," he added.
The economy is paying a heavy price due to the bl...
