Quarantine-free travel bubbles were hailed as tourism’s “godsend” earlier this year, but cancellations and suspensions have deflated hopes they will herald a return to pre-pandemic normality.

The stock market index is hovering around 6,000 points now, raising questions among investors over whether it would remain stable here or take a plunge like before.

India’s Mahindra & Mahindra expects it will take at least another two years for car sales to return to their pre-pandemic peaks, but a slow pace of vaccinations could hurt recovery prospects, its chief told Reuters in an interview.

The one-person company (OPC) law is off to a disappointing start as no single entrepreneur has come forward to incorporate firms under the provision although six months have passed since its passage.

Eleven US airlines issued $12.84 billion in cash refunds to customers in 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic upended the travel industry, the head of industry trade group Airlines for America (A4A) said in a letter to lawmakers on Friday.

The government may make it mandatory for businesses to use formal channels such as banks and mobile financial services for transactions involving more than Tk 50,000 from the next fiscal year.

The US customs agency announced Friday it would block imports of products from China’s Dalian Ocean Fishing Co for alleged use of forced labor and abuse of workers on its tuna vessels.

Fifty-two per cent of electricity consumers in Bangladesh apply for the connection through middlemen instead of going to the distribution offices directly, according to a new survey.

India’s economic outlook has weakened again, albeit slightly, with worst-case scenario forecasts suggesting the toll from the coronavirus pandemic could be much deeper, stoking fears the job crisis may worsen over the coming year, a Reuters poll found.

Carmakers in the Indian automobile hub of Chennai will be allowed to keep operating, the state government said on Saturday, amid protests by workers who fear catching Covid-19 in one of the country’s hardest-hit states.

Colonial Pipeline, the largest fuel pipeline in the United States, on Friday said it had resolved a temporary network disruption, just weeks after a ransomware attack crippled fuel delivery for several days in the southeast region.

Small, cottage and medium entrepreneurs across the country will get an opportunity to sell their produce through the online marketing platform of Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation (BSCIC).

US consumer prices surged in April, with a measure of underlying inflation blowing past the Federal Reserve’s 2 per cent target and posting its largest annual gain since 1992, because of pent-up demand and supply constraints as the economy reopens.

President Joe Biden’s first budget proposal comes with a big price tag - at $6 trillion, roughly 50 per cent higher than pre-Covid-19 federal spending - but, at least for now, projects a relatively modest long-term lift to the economy, likely reflecting concerns about the aging US population.

British finance minister Rishi Sunak called for more progress on ensuring financial markets support lower greenhouse gas emissions, after speaking with other finance ministers and central bankers from the G7 group of rich nations on Friday.

India’s federal government will borrow $22 billion from the market to compensate the country’s states for a shortfall in tax receipts this fiscal year, but it deferred cutting taxes on medicines and medical equipments used to treat coronavirus patients.

The Biden administration is unlikely to remove tariffs on Chinese goods in the short term, but China and the United States might find a middle ground by increasing tariff exclusions as a way to reduce tensions, a Chinese think-tank said.

Agriculture Minister Mohammad Abdur Razzaque today said retaining self-sufficiency in food is a big challenge due to population growth, loss of cultivable land and many other reasons.

Better negotiation skills, export diversification, improved competitiveness and institutional capacity building are the key to find success for Bangladesh after its graduation from least developed country (LDC) category, speakers said at a webinar today.

Grassroots migrant rights organisation ‘Ovibashi Karmi Unnayan Program’ (Okup) today urged the government to allocate 10 percent of the total remittance sent by migrant workers annually for their development, protection and welfare in the 2021-22 national budget.