ECONOMY & BUSINESS BANGLADESHTODAY <strong>10</strong> THE TUESDAy, OCTOBER 9, <strong>2018</strong> PRAN achieves BRC Certificate PRAN Group, a leading food processor and exporter, has achieved British Retail Consortium-BRC certificate. PRAN Agro Limited and Natore Agro Limited, two sister concern of PRAN Group, received the recognition from the UK based BRC Certification Body recently, a press release said. Eleash Mridha, Managing Director of PRAN Group, disclosed the achievement through a press conference held at PRAN Center in the capital's Badda. BRC certificate guarantees the standardization of quality, safety and operational criteria and ensure that manufacturers fulfil their legal obligations and provide protection for the end consumer. BRC certificate are now a fundamental requirement of manufacturers and food service organizations for exporting its products to the Europe and America. Addressing the press conference, Eleash Mridha said, "Recently, two companies of the PRAN Group achieved BRC Certificate. The products under the companies include PRAN Spice, PRAN Mustard Oil, Mr. Noodles and PRAN Sauce.As a result, we will easily enter the Europe and America region to export our products." "PRAN always try to give its customers best products by maintaining quality in every step of manufacturing. So this is another document on behalf of PRAN Group that talk to our products quality," Eieash Mridah added. He further said that, PRAN is the highest exporter in the spice category from Bangladesh. We are exporting our spices more than hundred countries. Now, we will able to send our products in every corner of the world." Sheikh Sajjad Hossain, Executive Director of PRAN Agro Ltd, Tanvir Hasan, Deputy General Manager of Natore Agro Ltd, Toshan Paul, Head of Marketing of Noodlesand Mahamudul Hasan, Brand Manager of PRAN Spice also present at the program. Chinese yuan weakens to 6.8957 against USD Monday The central parity rate of the Chinese currency renminbi, or the yuan, weakened 165 basis points to 6.8957 against the U.S. dollar Monday, according to the China Foreign Exchange Trade System. In China's spot foreign exchange market, the yuan is allowed to rise or fall by 2 percent from the central parity rate each trading day. The central parity rate of the yuan against the U.S. dollar is based on a weighted average of prices offered by market makers before the opening of the interbank market each business day. The following are the central parity rates of the Chinese currency renminbi, or the yuan, against 24 major currencies announced on Monday by the China Foreign Exchange Trade System: The central parity rate of the yuan against the Hong Kong dollar is based on the central parity rate of the yuan against the U.S. dollar and the exchange rate of the Hong Kong dollar against the U.S. dollar at 9 a.m. in international foreign exchange markets on the same business day. The central parity rates of the yuan against the other 22 currencies are based on the average prices offered by market makers before the opening of the interbank foreign exchange market. Economic Watch: China to cut reserve requirement ratio, with monetary Policy unchanged The People's Bank of China (PBOC) decided on Sunday to cut the reserve requirement ratio (RRR) for RMB deposits by one percentage point starting from Oct. 15, but the stance of China's monetary policy remains unchanged. The fourth RRR cut of the year will cover the yuan deposits of large commercial banks, share-holding commercial banks, city commercial banks, non-county rural commercial banks and foreign banks. Wen Bin, chief researcher of China Minsheng Bank, said that the move would unleash 1.2 trillion yuan of capital into the market, but it would not change the central bank's stance of sticking to a prudent and neutral monetary policy, as its goal was to reduce financing costs of the real economy. A statement of the central bank said that some of the liquidity unleashed will be used to pay back the 450 billion yuan of the medium-term lending facility (MLF) that will mature on Oct. 15. Zeng Gang, a researcher with the Institute of Finance and Banking of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said using the RRR cut to replace the MLF operation could optimize the maturity structure of credit, allow financial institutions to access long-term funds steadily and therefore reduce the financing costs of the real economy. This was the second time that the central bank used RRR cuts to replace MLF operation this year. Wu Qing, chief economist of the China Orient Asset Management Company, said that the move was consistent with market expectations, and in the future, the central bank might continue to use MLF and other tools to make fine adjustments on liquidity. According to the central bank, the incremental capital of 750 billion yuan will be injected into the market to support small, micro and private enterprises and innovative enterprises to enhance the vitality and resilience of the Chinese economy, strengthen endogenous growth momentum and promote the healthy development of the real economy. The move remains targeted at adjustment with a goal to optimize the liquidity structure of commercial banks and the financial market and to reduce financing costs, said the central bank. The PBOC will continuously implement a prudent and neutral monetary policy, refrain from using a deluge of stimulus and focus on targeted adjustment to maintain sound and sufficient liquidity, facilitate rational growth in monetary credit and social financing and create a proper monetary and financial environment for the country to pursue high-quality economic development and advance the supply-side structural reform, it said. The RRR cut will fill in the liquidity gap of banks and put no downward pressure on the yuan as the country's monetary policy is not eased, according to the PBOC statement. No corrupt element will go unpunished: ACC Commissioner C o m m i s s i o n e r (Investigation) of Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) AFM Aminul Islam has said that no corrupt element will go unpunished. "It's high time that we have to prevent corruption. We can't keep an uneven path of corruption for our future generation. We want to establish such a country which will be free from corruption," he reiterated. ACC Commissioner urged all to raise their voice against corruption unitedly to fight the long persisting social menace effectively. He was addressing a discussion meeting at auditorium of Bangladesh Employees Welfare Board in Rajshahi as chief guest today. ACC Divisional Office organized the meeting on the occasion of distributing prizes among the best city/district and upazila corruption prevention committees. Forty committees were given prizes for their laudable contribution to forge social resistance against corruption on the occasion. Chaired by Deputy Commissioner SM Abdul Kader the meeting was addressed, among others, by Additional Commissioner of Rajshahi Division Aminul Islam, Commissioner of Rajshahi Metropolitan Police AK Hafiz Akhter, ACC Director Md Muniruzzaman and divisional director Abdul Karim. ACC Commissioner Islam said: "No graft suspect will be spared. All suspects will be brought to justice." He mentioned that corruption undermines economic development, increase poverty, exploitation and injustice, prevent good governance, accountability and transparency and create social and political instability and insecurity. He further said institutional corruptions have to be checked first before taking lawful action against a person who is involved in corruption willingly or unwillingly. Mr Islam also said elimination of corruption is a very difficult task. So, we have to work together to reduce corruption. He laid importance on creation of awareness among the mass people, especially the young generation, to eliminate corruption from the society. Concerted effort is crucially important to check bribery as it is impossible for the ACC alone to fight corruption. AIIB approves 8th project with loan of USD 455 mln in India The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has recently approved a 455- million-U.S. dollar loan project for Andhra Pradesh, India, making it the eighth project approved by AIIB in India. The new loan project aims to build and upgrade the road network of Andhra Pradesh. The road network is about 6,000 kilometers long and connects more than 3,300 rural settlements. After the completion of the project, it will bring convenience to more than 2 million local people, improve the transportation conditions of agricultural products, and increase the enrollment rate of local children. According to the data of AIIB, with the approval of the above project, the amount of loans approved by AIIB in India totaled 1.769 billion U.S. dollars, and the loans mainly went to the field of infrastructure construction, such as transportation and electric power. Saturated Lisbon airport puts Portugal tourism boom at risk A record number of passengers using Lisbon's airport is proving a bittersweet achievement as daily delays and a lack of space to park planes threatens to strangle the goose laying golden eggs for Portugal's economy. Tourists flocking to Lisbon to soak up some sun and while away evenings listening to Fado music in the city's bars has been one of the bright spots in Portugal's economy, which was wracked by the eurozone debt crisis at the start of the decade. But with Lisbon's Humberto Delgado airport having already in 2016 passed its capacity forecasts for 2025, there are mounting concerns that without rapid investments it might soon act as a choke valve on the motor of Portugal's economy. In 2017, the airport set a new record of 26.7 million passengers, a 66 percent increase over four years. And traffic is up another 11 percent over the first eight months of this year. The Portuguese government, national airline TAP and the tourism sector all agree: construction of a second airport for the capital needs to get underway. The plan under discussion is to convert Montijo airbase on the opposite side of the Tagus river from Lisbon into a civil airport. As a stop-gap measure, a little-used secondary runway at the current airport, located in the city's northern suburbs, will be closed to make space to park planes. The Montijo project, which would take overall capacity to 50 million passengers per year, has been the subject of discussions since February last year between the government and ANA, the operator of <strong>10</strong> Portuguese airports that is owned by French construction and management firm Vinci. The discussions are well advanced and should be wrapped up soon, say both sides. But for airlines, the wait is uncomfortable. "The delivery calendar for our new planes is set, but I don't know yet if I'll have space to park them. It's really frustrating," the chief executive of TAP, Antonoaldo Neves, said at a recent conference. "If we don't move forward with the necessary speed, all of Portugal will be left behind," he said. TAP is the principal airline at Lisbon airport, and constraints there could begin to stunt their company's growth next year. "What are we waiting for to move forward with the Montijo option?" questioned the head of the association of tourism firms, Francisco Calheiros. Some estimates say Portugal stands to lose one million tourists per year because of the situation. Prime Minister Antonio Costa recognised there is "no other solution" but said the government is waiting for the results of an environmental impact study to "make the decision absolutely irreversible". The situation Lisbon finds itself in is also part of the legacy of the eurozone debt crisis, which pushed the country into seeking an international bailout in 20<strong>10</strong>. As part of the bailout the government slashed spending and investment, including abandoning plans to build an entirely new airport in a town adjacent to Montijo. "We need to correct the mistake made when it was decided not to build an airport that we already needed then," said Costa. In the Photos (From left to right): IsratJahan, Head of Customer Care; Sandeep Debnath, Chief Technology Officer; Rajiv Bhattacharya, Sr. Director, Operations of Shohoz Rides and Md. SaydulAlam, Top Rider of Shohoz Monthly Campaign - September'18. Photo: Courtesy Climate, development tipped for Nobel economics prize The <strong>2018</strong> Nobel season, marked by the lack of a literature award for the first time in 70 years, winds up Monday with the economics prize which experts say could go to research on the climate or development. The Nobel economics prize was created by the Swedish central bank "in memory of Alfred Nobel" and first awarded in 1969, unlike the other prizes which were created in his last will and testament and first awarded in 1901. As with the other Nobels, nominations and deliberations are kept secret for 50 years, so it's nearly impossible to know which way the prize committee is leaning each year. "From a historical perspective, there are about as many conservative as liberal economists in recent years and the trend has been for diversification: the range of fields of research that have been honoured has been more vast, the choice of laureates has been more eclectic," economist Gabriel Soderberg of Sweden's Uppsala University told AFP. Last year the prize went to US economist Richard Thaler, a co-founder of the so-called "nudge" theory, which demonstrates how people can be persuaded to make decisions that leave them healthier and happier. "The heart of the Nobel prizes are the awards for science, peace and literature. The economics prize is not formally a Nobel prize," Soderberg said. That fact may make "the jury more attentive to public opinion, a little more sensitive to the way in which the laureate will be received," he said. This is why "societal questions are reflected in the prize. The issue of climate change is very important right now and (for this reason) William Nordhaus could be honoured," he said. Nordhaus, a Yale University professor known for his research on the economic consequences of global warming, bears two of the typical characteristics of a Nobel economics laureate: he's a man, and he's American, like 70 percent of previous prizewinners. At 77, he's a decade older than the average winner. Only one woman has won the economics prize since 1969, Elinor Ostrom in 20<strong>09</strong>. Micael Dahlen, a professor at the Stockholm School of Economics, said that was all the more reason to give the nod to a woman this year. "I'd really like to see the prize go to (France's) Esther Duflo, whose research has focused on developing economies and gender equality, or Cuban-born American Carmen Reinhart, active in the field of public finance," Dahlen explained. Meanwhile, Hubert Fromlet, a professor at Sweden's University of Vaxjo singled out several American women who could be honoured: Anne Krueger, the first woman named the deputy head of the International Monetary Fund, Susan Athey, known for her work on auctions and decision making under uncertainty, and Claudia Goldin, who researches gender inequality. "I could also see the prize going to a macro-economist like Ben Bernanke," the former head of the US Federal Reserve, said Dahlen. Among the "usual suspects" cited frequently for the Nobel are US economists Paul Romer and Paul Milgrom, and Frenchman Olivier Blanchard, a former IMF chief economist. The youngest Nobel prize is this year celebrating its 50th anniversary. Created in 1968 to mark the tricentenary of the Swedish central bank, the Riksbank, it is the most prestigious prize an economics researcher can win. Nobel's will stipulated that the prizes shall go to people who have worked to create "a better world". According to Micael Dahlen, "economics has the same sweeping effects on society as the other disciplines and can therefore be considered a prerequisite for everything from scientific progress to culture and peace". Shohoz Rides accolades the best rider To promote and inspire better ride sharing experience, Shohoz Rides awarded their best rider of the month at capital's Tokyo Square Convention Center. Among the riders who provided topnotch services to the passengers, Md. SaidulAlam has been selected as the 'Top Rider of September <strong>2018</strong>' and was awarded BDT 1, 50,000 for his service, a press release said. The 'Top Rider of September <strong>2018</strong>' was selected under the month long campaign 'Lakhpotir ChyeoBeshi' by Shohoz Rides. Morocco's expat remittances hit 4.7 bln USD in 8 months Remittances from Moroccans abroad reached 4.7 billion U.S. dollars in the first eight months of <strong>2018</strong>, up 1 percent compared with the same period last year, the foreign exchange regulator said Saturday. The remittances, a main source of foreign exchange reserves in Morocco, came from some 5 million Moroccan expatriates. Between January and August, the flows of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Morocco declined by 8.6 percent to 1.9 billion dollars from a year earlier. In 2017, Morocco attracted nearly 2.57 billion dollars of FDI, up 12 percent year-on-year.
MISCELLANEOUS TUESDAY, OCTOBER 9, <strong>2018</strong> 11 Preparation going on for Durga Puja in Khulna KHULNA: Preparations for celebration of Durga Puja, the largest religious festival of the Hindu community, is progressing fast in Khulna city and district, reports BSS. The five-day Sharodiya Utsab will begin on October 15 and conclude on October 19 through the immersion of idols. General Secretary of city unit Puja Udjapon Parisad Prashanta Kumar Kundu told BSS that a total of 123 Durga Mandaps has been set up in the metropolitan city while 798 Durga Puja Mandaps has been set up in all nine upazilas of the district to celebrate Durga Puja. While visiting the largest Dharmasava Puja mandap in the city this correspondent found that artisans were busy painting the images of goddess to make the idols attractive. Khulna Metropolitan Police (KMP) and Khulna District Police authorities have separately taken adequate security measures for ensuing smooth celebration of Durga Puja. KMP commissioner Humayun Kabir said all kinds of security measures, uninterrupted electricity supply and traffic management would be ensured for peaceful celebration of the festival. Khulna Police Super S M Shafiullah said security measures have been taken for each temple. It is to be informed that a P2G contract has been signed between Sonali Bank Ltd. and Tap'n Pay by today 08 October, <strong>2018</strong> Monday at 11.00 am in the Head-quarter of Sonali Bank Ltd. The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Sonali Bank Ltd. Obayed Ullah Al Masud and the Chief Finance Officer (CFO) of Sonali Bank Ltd. Subhash Chandra Das were present at the ceremony. Dr. Kamrul Ahsan, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Tap'n Payand Abul Hossain Emon, Head of Sales and Marketing of Tap'n Pay were also present there. By this contract, customers will not have to visit branches of Sonali Bank Ltd. to seek the services that Sonali Bank Ltd. provides; from now on, customers will be able to receive the services from Tap'n Pay agent points or by operating Tap'n Pay mobile application. Photo: Courtesy Construction of Police Officers' Mess begins in Rangpur RANGPUR: Construction works of a <strong>10</strong>-storied Police Officers' Mess with modern facilities began on its site at Keranipara area in the city on Sunday afternoon, reports BSS. Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Bangladesh Police for Rangpur Range Devdas Bhattacharya inaugurated the construction works at a function held on the structure site by unveiling plaque of the foundation stone as the chief guest. The Public Works Department (PWD) is implementing construction works of the twostoried building of the <strong>10</strong>-storied Police Officers' Mess at a cost of over Taka 4.02 crore in the first phase. The PWD will construct rest portion of the <strong>10</strong>-storied Police Officers' Mess building in future. Rangpur Metropolitan Police Commissioner Md Abdul Alim Mahmud, Additional DIG for Rangpur range Abdul Mazid, all eight Superintends of Police from eight districts under Rangpur Range and other police officials were present. Dbœq‡bi MYZš¿ †kL nvwmbvi g~jgš¿ GD-1228/18 (8 x 4) GD-1234 /18 (16 x 4) GD-1232 /18 (8 x 4)
Change language