Sohel Parvez

The debate over Bangladesh’s GDP growth forecasts is back again. There is wide variation in the projections made by the multilateral development agencies for the current fiscal year amid deep uncertainties about the near-term trajectory of the global economy as the pandemic is still raging.

Residents in Dhaka are quite familiar with informal buyers of obsolete computers, laptops, batteries of Instant Power Supply and other malfunctioned home appliances.

The government has prohibited sale and distribution of batteries used in solar home systems (SHS) that have not been certified by the Bangladesh Standards & Testing Institution (BSTI).

The National Board of Revenue has opened an investigation to find out whether e-commerce platform Evaly has dodged income tax, according to a senior official of the NBR.

For the last four days, Mohammed Abul Hossain, a vegetable exporter, has been trying to send his consignments to England but each of his attempts ended in failure as two scanners solely used for Europe-bound cargoes are out of order at Hazrat Shahjahal International Airport (HSIA).

GPH Ispat, one of the country’s leading steel makers, is going to export billet to China in what will be the biggest-ever outgoing shipment of raw materials by any Bangladeshi company.

Over the first nine days of the current month, importers brought more than 2,500 tonnes of onion from four countries -- Myanmar, China, Pakistan and Turkey.

Rainfall in Bangladesh was 9 per cent higher than average this year, leading to repeated floods that not only damaged a large number of crops, but also affected cultivation in general with vegetables being no exception.

The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and the trade war between China and the US have brought to the fore an important issue, that dependence on a single country for sourcing goods is risky.

The government is finally easing its grip on the shrimp industry as local farmers can now cultivate vannamei shrimp within the country following years of dithering by the concerned authorities to grant permission.

Local oceangoing vessels that carry bulk shipments from one continent to another have recovered from the Covid-19 fallouts as the operators are getting good business thanks to the increased demand from China, according to a leading operator of seagoing ships.

The latest spell of flood has inundated nearly 100,000 hectares of Aman crop, raising worries among agriculturists that a large portion of the plantings will be damaged.

Like any other business, new clean energy ventures are facing disruptions to their tempo for the Covid-19 pandemic. Among them are rooftop-based solar projects focusing factory buildings. Yet some entrepreneurs pushed on with their projects even after the rogue virus brought businesses to their knees.

Chinese tech giant Huawei has significantly trimmed down its device business division in Bangladesh which was directly involved in monitoring its smartphone and other device businesses here, said insiders yesterday.

Raw jute prices hit a record high of around Tk 3,000 per maund as supply declined in the markets of producing regions owing to stocking by middlemen and slow release by farmers seeking to cash in on flood-induced production fall, various traders said yesterday.

The revenue authority has reduced value added tax (VAT) on locally made cylinders for storing liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) in order to allow domestic manufacturers to better compete with imported cylinders and enable users to afford bottled gas.

Revenue collection rebounded in August after remaining downbeat for four months since April, thanks to recovery in business and economic activities that buoyed overall receipts.

Despite the resumption of economic activities and signs of recovery in various sectors, paper mills are struggling to stay afloat as demand has not picked up yet, say industry operators.

The country has a stock of 5.25 lakh tonnes of locally grown onion and it will require six lakh tonnes more to meet domestic requirements until the next main harvesting season, typically the March-April period.

Questions have arisen over Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation’s (BJMC) decision to sell 100,000 bales of jute sacks at a price lower than the official rate as it is set to deprive the country of nearly Tk 8 crore in revenue.