বাংলাদেশের কথা

From its founding in the 1970’s by two brothers with uncommon foresight and vision, Ahmed Sohail Fasiur Rahman and Ahmed Salman Fazlur Rahman, the BEXIMCO group has grown from being focused solely upon commodities trading to the largest private sector group in Bangladesh.  From real estate development to energy to aviation to textiles, the group has certainly touched lives.  With a diversified group of industries accounting for almost three quarters of Bangladesh’s gross domestic product (GDP), “Taking Bangladesh to the world” seems a more-than-fitting motto for thegroup.  In today’s climate of global business, it is not enough to be satisfied with success solely on the domestic level.  BEXIMCO is certainly not.  Even as Bangladesh’s biggest private sector employer, the group employs over 48,000 people worldwide and continues to grow.  Under the guidance of its gifted management, BEXIMCO has its sights on the international market.  The management team...

According to ‘Doing Business’: Doing business ranks Bangladesh as the 107th country out of 183 countries. According to them, Bangladesh ranks way above India and Indonesia. Goldman Sachs’s Next 11: It said that Bangladesh is one of the eleven uprising markets in 2005 and it shows that soon Bangladesh will be one of the largest economies in the world. JP Morgan’s Frontier Five: Bangladesh was named as one of the five most promising economies in the world. Bangladesh was ranked fourth among the five countries. The other countries are Vietnam, Nigeria, Kazakhstan and Kenya. Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s sovereign credit ratings: Bangladesh received BB- and Ba3 according to Standard & Poor’s. Moody’s rated Bangladesh as in level with Vietnam. ADB List of Asian Growth Drivers: The ADB list did not place Bangladesh as one of the eight countries of Asia which might cover the 95% of Asia’s growth within 2050.

World Bank and all the other development partners of Bangladesh have joined forces to improve the healthcare system of the country. The Australian, Swedish, British and American government representatives had a meeting in Dhaka where they witnessed a Multi Donor Trust Fun Grant Agreement for the Bangladesh Health Sector Development Program. It will cost approximately USD 7 billion. 75% will be paid by the government and the rest will be paid by the partners.

The discontinued forgotten transit between Bangladesh and Bhutan is reshaping itself. The plans are being carefully made by both the countries' officials. This deal is a big one for both the countries; the trade sector would be hugely affected. This is a projected not to be taken lightly at all, not only does the current of these two countries depend on it but also future plans of trading passes with other countries depends on the success of the current one. Details are reported at the Business Bangladesh site.

আজকের পৃথিবী বিশ্বায়নের খুটির উপর ভর করে দাড়িয়ে আছে । উন্নত দেশ, উন্নয়নশীল দেশ, অনুন্নত দেশ এই বিশ্বায়নের সুতার মাধ্যমে একে অন্যের সাথে হাত মিলিয়ে আজ অবস্থান করছে । বিশ্বায়ন আমাদের যে সুযোগ-সুবিধা দেয় তা কি আমরা ঠিকমতো ব্যবহার করতে পেরেছি? খুব সম্ভবত না, কিন্তু সত্যি বলতে যতটুকু পেরেছি, তা আসলে অগ্রাহ্য করা যায় না । বাংলাদেশের সম্মানিত অর্থমন্ত্রী তার সম্মানিত কালে বাকী মন্ত্রীদের থেকে বেশি বুদ্ধিমত্তার পরিচয় দিয়েছেন। সেজন্য বাংলাদেশ বিশ্বায়নের এ যুগে তাল মিলিয়ে চলতে সমর্থ হয়েছে । Corporate Bangladesh এ এই বিষয়ে একটি লেখা হয়েছে। লেখকের ভাষায়ঃ " উন্নত যোগাযোগ প্রযুক্তি ও দ্রুততম যোগাযোগ ব্যবস্থার সাথে, বিশ্বায়ন কোটি কোটি মানুষের দুয়ারে পৌঁছে তাদের মুহূর্তের মধ্যে সবকিছু আদান-প্রদানের সামর্থ্য দিচ্ছে। এই বিস্ময় আমাদের সকল বাধাকে অতিক্রম করে সমগ্র বিশ্বে ছড়িয়ে পরেছে নতুন সম্পর্ক, সৌহার্দ ও সম্ভাবনার আলো নিয়ে ।  " লেখক বিস্তারিত গবেষণা করেছেন এই বিষয়ে । তার মতে, বাংলাদেশ এর পূর্ণ সদব্যবহার করতে পেরেছে, যার ফলে আমাদের যোগাযোগ ব্যবস্থা, খেলাধুলাসহ অন্যান্য ক্ষেত্রেও অনেক উন্নতি...

The National Commission for Minorities (NCM) has reported that the Bangladesh immigrants had nothing to do with the recent racial disputes and violence in Assam. The dispute was between the Bodos and local Muslims. The NCM Chairman Wajahat Habibullah states that he has made a full report of the violence and submitted it to the Prime Minister of India, Mr. Manmohan Singh. The report contains the full details of the incident including the reasons and possible solutions to prevent such incidents from ever happening again. He also stated that the Prime Minister confirmed receiving the report. The enquiry commission reported that the dispute was not between the Bangladesh immigrants and the Bodos; it was between the Muslims residents of BTAD and the Bodos. The clash occurred about 1 month ago in July. Four Bodo people were found dead. Assuming it was done by the minorities, armed Bodos attacked the local Muslim residents.

Sahara Parivar, that won a contract from Bangladesh to carry out a mega land project in Dhaka, faced fines by Indian Supreme Court last week. The Supreme Court ruled that Saharas committed a number of economic offences over the past years. The court directed Sahara India Real Estate Corporation Ltd. and Sahara Housing Investment Corporation to give back about $4.4bn to 2.21 crore depositors through an optimally fully convertible debentures. Why would Bangladeshi people trust this group when they have committed offences with their own people - Indians.  The court also ordered Saharas to provide details with supporting documents whether it already refunded any of the cash to the people. The bench said in a statement that “We make it clear that if the documents produced by Saharas are not found genuine or acceptable … the SEBI (WTM) will proceed as if Saharas had not refunded any amount to the real and genuine subscribers who had invested money through the RHPs”. Justice Kh...

AFTAB Group is one of the best performing corporate groups in Bangladesh. Being one of a leading enterprise, AFTAB Group has created many success stories in the industry. The group covers many business sectors including banking, food, textile, agriculture, ready-made garments, industrial pump manufacturing and compressed natural gas. Their business is well established in every sector and growing even stronger. One of the best entrepreneurs of the country, Azharul Islam and his son Iftekharul Islam are the two main people behind the success of AFTAB group. The AFTAB Group is a major shareholder of the leading commercial financial institution – Uttara Bank. The head office of Uttara Bank is located in Motijheel Commercial Area, Dhaka.  The bank itself is one of the oldest and the biggest banks in the country. The bank has reached its success with almost 4,200 employees distributed in 207 branches around Bangladesh. Even more, the bank has 600 worldwide affiliates which enable an ...

The defence segment has always been among highest expenditure sectors of Bangladeshi budget. Like every year, the issue on defence will not go through a debate this time. The MPs always keep the defence expenditure under a shield of secrecy; the situation is indifferent in this year. However, for the first time, finance minister Abdul Muhit has presented a list of military hardware in the budget declaration that the government plans to buy during the next fiscal year. But no more details are available. But as government spends a huge portion of the taxpayers money on defence, may be this issue should be made more public. No one denies the necessity of strong armed forces. But no one is really sure how big a military does our country actually need. May be this issue should go through a debate whether the government should cut down on the defence expenditures, especially in our county where a huge portion of the people live under the poverty line. Our military forces train thei...

According to analysts, good ideas may bring sufficient sponsors for entrepreneurs, so no worries for initiating a business as long as you have a good idea to build up on. These funds can be brought from the company’s corporate social responsibility funds. Even small amount of fund from companies may help flourish the social business. Social business events like the one held in Savar at Gonoshasthya Kendra, can bring a lot of attention both in the local public’s eyes as well as intellectuals; like the one mentioned which brought in together 700 local people and 125 foreign participants, the issue of which was to clarify the concept of social business and it being a way to resolve complicated matters. The discussion held there pulled out some outstanding facts about how CSR fund can benefit both the entrepreneurs as well as the company providing the CSR fund. They encouraged innovative ideas from the new generation, to work for the society and also to encourage others around...

According to analysts, good ideas may bring sufficient sponsors for entrepreneurs, so no worries for initiating a business as long as you have a good idea to build up on. These funds can be brought from the company’s corporate social responsibility funds. Even small amount of fund from companies may help flourish the social business. Social business events like the one held in Savar at Gonoshasthya Kendra, can bring a lot of attention both in the local public’s eyes as well as intellectuals; like the one mentioned which brought in together 700 local people and 125 foreign participants, the issue of which was to clarify the concept of social business and it being a way to resolve complicated matters. The discussion held there pulled out some outstanding facts about how CSR fund can benefit both the entrepreneurs as well as the company providing the CSR fund. They encouraged innovative ideas from the new generation, to work for the society and also to encourage others around t...

Looks ahead to the Future Square Group, the most innovative company in Bangladesh pioneered exports of medicine from the country back in 1987. They have also been active in exporting other pharmaceuticals and this is one of the main reasons for their success and their increased credibility as a company. The founding chairman of this highly innovative company was Samson H. Chowdhury who died in 2012. Mr. Samson H. Chowdhury was able to put together Square with three of his friends. It was then appropriately named Square, because it was started by four friends. Executive management of the company is led by the managing director. The executive manager has a diversified role in that they plan the segment plans for each division within Square. Square realizes that they owe a certain portion of their success to their shareholders. They protect their capital, and this ensures the highest growth for assets and it increases their potential for future success. Square’s emplo...

Ranks Tel, a non govt. land phone operator, founded back in 2005 with CDMA technology; has recently re-instigated their operations after a long period, of two years gap. Initially the network covered Dhaka and Chittagong regions, but plans to spread its network to Sylhet, Bogra and Khulna. In order to promote the re-launch, the operator also offered various interesting packages, such as Kotha, Nukhut and Astha. The operator had a total of approximately three lakh customers, when it was shut down in 2010; out of which a total of 20,000 loyal old customers already registered for the new service and, more are under process. The company was shut down due to license cancelling for allegedly unauthorized voice over internet protocol, VoIP, by the Bangladesh Telecommunication regulatory Commission, BTRC. Shortly before which the operator had also launched mobile phone services although with limited mobility. Ranks Tel has invested more than 400 crore taka in this business in our co...

We came across this rather lousy letter sent last year to The Guardian by Serajur Rahman, a retired deputy head, BBC Bengali Service. He claims that Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman mistranslated "lakh" as "million" or was confused in saying that three million people died in the war in 1971.  Mr. Serajur Rahman claims that "when I explained to him that Bangladesh had been liberated and he was elected president in his absence. Apparently he arrived in London under the impression that East Pakistanis had been granted the full regional autonomy for which he had been campaigning. During the day I and others gave him the full picture of the war. I explained that no accurate figure of the casualties was available but our estimate, based on information from various sources, was that up to "three lakh" (300,000) died in the conflict." According to Serajur Rahman, when Sheikh Mujibur met David Frost later that day, he announced, ...

The youth community is one of the most important genres of any society and youth employment is absolutely necessary for the socio-economic development of any nation. Recently, it has been noticed in the western countries that they are facing an economic crisis due to unproductive youth community. That is why Bangladesh has marked youth development as one of the most important aspects. Whether it is a First World or a Third World country, the respective governments are trying to create more and more job opportunities to increase the national productivity. Whether it is a big corporate, investing their money or a small industry, creating self employment opportunities, the government is doing everything within its capacity to encourage them to be more active towards creating more job sectors. It has been marked recently that the Bangladeshi entrepreneurs has been lacking motivation to create root level jobs. The Bangladesh bank has taken initiative to vanish the demoralizing situa...

According to the experts, the huge interest burden will be a huge amount of burden for the government and might also take away the scope to spend on any productive projects like the infrastructure development and energy projects. Just for the coming financial year, the govt. paid 12.3 percent of the outgoing year’s budgetary for interest payment which is estimated to be 12.2 percent of the budget of 1.9 trillion Tk. Only the public service sectors, is said might be able to absorb a greater sum than that of interest payments in the coming financial year. The amount of interest payment might even exceed the total cumulative allocations for fuel and energy, social security and welfare sectors. A warning has been given by the economists about the mounting pressure of interest payments on public expenditure. According to them this reduces the government's opportunity to provide for the other sectors and ability to respond to sudden shocks such as natural disasters or a global e...

The loss acquired, due to the   higher purchasing rate and lower selling rate in fuel and electricity sector of our country, has caused the net losses of Bangladesh to be doubled by the state enterprises to 16.880 crore Tk   in the current financial year. Out of the 48 loss making enterprises, 36 made a profit of Tk 8,386 crore; Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation and Bangladesh Power Development Board alone suffered 99 percent of the total loss which is estimated by the Bangladesh Economic Review, to be about Tk 25,266 crore.   In both the cases of BPC and PDB; losses doubled from approximately 9 crore Tk to 16 crore Tk and 4.5 crore Tk to 8.5 crore Tk respectively in just one year. An official from the finance ministry stated that the major cause of the losses in both the enterprises is fuel-guzzling rental power plants. He specified that the losses occurred mostly because BPC’s power plants requires more fuel to run therefore resulting into BPC importing more...

Current ‘Grand Alliance’ government, led by country’s most power-packed political party Awami League, came to power after a landslide victory in the 2008 general election. The first year of the new government went rather smoothly. But as time passed, years went by, situation slipped as a kid slides in a park’s newly installed slipper. Credibility of the ‘Grand Alliance’ government is questionable; for rightful reasons. The recent surveys by newspapers and research groups revealed that the people are losing confidence in the government - both nationally and internationally. The government has made rather controversial amendments in the constitution during the last three years, the most raging issue being withdrawal of constitutional provision of the usually three month long caretaker government. The opposing political parties and the general mass did not accept this decision. The indifference will lead the country towards anarchy. The law and order situation has gone do...