Refayet Ullah Mirdha

The country’s apex trade body yesterday called on the central bank to beef up its monitoring of private commercial banks, financial institutions and money changers to check the anomalies in the international currency exchange business. 

Bangladesh wants easy and cheap cotton from Uzbekistan to boost trade relations between the two countries, Senior Commerce Secretary Tapan Kanti Ghosh said today.

Bangladesh has taken up the initiative to join Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) to retain duty benefits once it makes the United Nations status graduation from a least developed country to a developing one in 2026. 

The proposed comprehensive economic Partnership agreement (CEPA) with India should be partially reciprocal, not fully, as India has a big economy and a huge basket of diversified products for export, said economists and businesses.

Senior officials of ministries concerned yesterday reached consensus on signing a much-needed Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA)

A falling local currency usually translates into higher earnings for exporters since their products become more competitive in the global markets. 

The inter-ministerial meeting on CEPA was attended by the officials of some important ministries, including foreign, labour, commerce, home affairs, along with different departments of agencies of the government at the commerce ministry in Dhaka.

The ongoing regular power cuts are eating away at the profits of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Bangladesh since they need to rely on costly diesel to keep their operation up and running, which is raising the cost of production. 

Bangladesh is targeting a lower export growth in 2022-23 despite raking in a record $52.08 billion in the last fiscal year largely because of insignificant strides in products and markets diversification and ongoing global turmoil. 

Garment exporters are demanding the European Union (EU) remove the 7.4 per cent threshold on apparel imports from any given country in the proposed Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) to ensure smooth continuation of exports to the world’s largest trade bloc.

The bottled soybean oil price has been reduced by Tk 14 a litre at retail.

Big and green apparel factories are content bagging a constant stream of work orders but small, medium and subcontracting units are suffering amidst volatility in the global garment supply chain stemming from the Russia-Ukraine war.

Bangladesh’s rawhide market appears to have made a comeback this Eid-ul-Azha on the back of higher demand, better prices and a bar on rawhides arriving in Dhaka.

Rawhide traders are expecting a good season for business this year as tanners have cleared last year’s arrears owed to them, which would in turn enable purchasing skins and hides from seasonal traders during upcoming Eid-ul-Azha. 

A deepening energy crisis is hitting industries in Bangladesh hard, forcing them to cut production by as much as 50 per cent as escalated import bills have forced the country to lower gas purchase from international sources.  

Like previous years, the government has been approving applications of different companies seeking to export rawhide to create demand and enable better prices, said Tapan Kanti Ghosh, senior secretary to the commerce ministry, yesterday. 

The government could pay additional incentives to the exporters of non-cotton apparel items in order to help them offset the severe impacts of the Russia-Ukraine war on the shipment of garment items. 

Exports from Bangladesh hit an all-time high of $52.08 billion in the just-concluded fiscal year, giving much-needed breathing space to the country amid ongoing volatility in the foreign exchange regime, official figures showed yesterday.

Local readymade garment exporters are expecting a strong rebound of the inflow of work orders from December onwards as prices of cotton have started to decline in the international markets. 

Businesses have expressed discontent at Bangladesh Bank setting a private sector credit growth target of 14.1 per cent for 2022-23 that is lower than the just-concluded fiscal year.