ON September 25, world leaders will gather in New York to adopt the new Sustainable Development Goals. The SDGs, comprising 17 goals and 169 related targets, are the result of extensive political negotiations, and will set the benchmarks over the next 15 years for achieving the international community's overarching objective: to “end poverty in all its forms everywhere.”

It is now generally agreed by all major stakeholders that gas reserves in the country are finite and depleting.

Why is it that the mention of mobile banking creates such a polarising set of reactions among many people?

When I joined the first private bank of Bangladesh some 27 years ago, the definition of a good banker remained as before: a star performer who returns home at night walking with an unsteady gait almost like a drunkard. Unfortunately, the definition still applies.

The third Interna-tional Conference on Financing for Development recently convened in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa.

Bangladesh's recent stable growth should not be branded as a low middle-income growth trap. Since independence, Bangladesh has consistently increased its average growth rate over every decade with a corresponding decrease in growth volatility.

The conference on Financing for Development of the United Nations held in Addis Ababa from July 13-16 received much less importance from global leaders than expected.

Bangladesh Bank recently announced its monetary policy for the fiscal year 2016. As always, the announcement has sparked a number of criticisms.

Bangladeshi women are increasingly getting into high value professions.

The 7.5 percent VAT on the tuition fees of private universities was based on the hypothesis that rich and well-off parents send their wards to private universities.

The monetary policy for the fiscal year 2016 is coming soon. Its arrival in the wake of the recently announced budget will build the bridge between the Ministry of Finance and Bangladesh Bank, heralding coordination between fiscal and monetary policies.

The government has recently taken a decision to merge the Board of Investment (BOI) and the Privatisation Commission to quicken the process of boosting investment and industrialisation in the county.

The government has recently taken a decision to merge the Board of Investment (BOI) and the Privatisation Commission to quicken the process of boosting investment and industrialisation in the county.

Our global and complex economy does many things well, but achieving equitable and sustainable outcomes, or in other words 'sustainable development', has not been one of its strengths.

Whenever initiatives to tax these services are taken, the burden invariably falls on the consumers. How does one track the real income when all transactions are done through cash? Cash transactions can be dodgy on both sides. The payee of tuition fees could very well be a tax evader as well.

On July 7, 2015, ECNEC approved the Rural Insfrastructure-2 project, designed to allocate Tk. 6,076 crore to 284 MPs. Under this project, each MP will be allowed to develop infrastructure projects worth Tk. 20 crore, which will be implemented by the Local Government Engineering Department (LGED).

Greece's desire to stay within Eurozone is a seriously constrained choice for its economy. This is because it will continue to plague price competitiveness of Greece's exportables in the rest of the world.

Bangladesh's recent graduation to the lower middle income group has surprisingly received cynical comments from some corners.

Over the past couple of months, a Greek tragedy has been in the making. Doomsayers had made all kinds of prophesies – regarding Greece, Europe, the financial world, and the Euro.

In a historical referendum on July 5, 2015, the Greek voters overwhelmingly sided with the current government in its debt negotiations with its European partners.