Rejaul Karim Byron

With much pomp and circumstances, Xi Jinping in October 2016 arrived in Bangladesh, the first visit by a Chinese president in 30 years.

Most of the poor people in urban areas remain deprived of the government’s social protection benefits. Only 17.84 percent of the poor people living in towns and cities receive support from social safety schemes, whereas 35.77 percent of the poor people in rural areas get the benefits, according to a World Bank report.

Construction work on two more metro rail lines will begin soon as the government aims to reduce traffic congestion and pollution in the capital.

For nearly two years, Raushan Mahmud has been working as a cashier at a firm that produces garment accessories in Gazipur.

The finance ministry has released Tk 1,530 crore in cash subsidies for remitters for the first two quarters of the current fiscal year as part of a government move to encourage remittance through official channels.

The government has decided to consider foreign loans as hard-term ones if the grant element is less than 25 percent, down from the 35 percent it currently takes into account, in a reflection of the country’s growing economic power.

The Rohingya crisis, water-sharing of 54 common rivers and the National Register of Citizens of India will feature prominently in talks during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s four-day visit to Delhi starting tomorrow.

Only local vessels or vehicles would be used for transporting Indian goods through Bangladesh, according to the draft standard operation procedure for India using Bangladeshi ports.

Any reforms in the banking sector will not be effective if those are made sparing loan defaulters, says Khondkar Ibrahim Khaled, former deputy governor of Bangladesh Bank.

The actual size of bad loans is more than double the officially recognised figure, according to a recent report of the International Monetary Fund -- a damning evidence of the fragile state of Bangladesh’s banking sector.

The country has scope to bankroll its infrastructure projects through external borrowing as it has a very low debt to gross domestic

Financial anomalies involving Tk 11,710 crore have been detected in 16 ministries between the fiscal years 2013-18 during audits by the Office of Comptroller and Auditor General.

Bangladesh Bank is set to give loans to local banks’ offshore banking units (OBU) to offset the negative returns that it now gets for its liquid euro assets -- a move that can be viewed as making the best out of a bad situation.

The government yesterday raised the hopes of aspiring entrepreneurs as it announced a Credit Guarantee Fund (CGF) to act as

The first meeting of the Bangladesh-China joint working group is set to be held in Dhaka next month to come up with ways to expedite the implementation of 27 projects that China had agreed to fund in October 2016.

The government is going to set up another 21 weighbridges on major highways to check overloading as the practice is causing damage to roads and bridges.

The cabinet yesterday approved a draft law that would allow the government to use “idle funds” of state-owned organisations for development work. There are 68 state-owned autonomous organisation which have Tk 2,12,100 crore deposited in banks, said Cabinet Secretary

International oil companies will now be able to export gas explored from Bangladesh’s offshore blocks in the Bay. The government has reintroduced the provision for export of gas by the drilling companies in the Offshore Model PSC 2019. This will not be applicable for onshore blocks.

Bangladesh stands to lose $7 billion in export earnings every year once it graduates into the developing country bracket in 2027 as the trade benefits it currently enjoys will be phased out then, a Planning Commission report says.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has projected Bangladesh’s economic growth to be 7.6 percent this fiscal year, which is 0.6