22-11-2021

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2021
8
Al-Arafah Islami Bank Ltd has opened 195th branch at Boalkhali, Chattogram recently. Moslem
Uddin Ahmed Member of the Parliament of Chattogram-8 inaugurated the new branch as the Chief
Guest. Vice Chairman of Executive Committee of the Bank Mohammad Abdus Salam, Director
Ahamedul Haque and Md. Rafiqul Islam was present as special guest in the occasion. Deputy
Managing Director S M Jaffar presided over the ceremony. Boalkhali Mayor Zahurul Islam, Upazila
Chairman Md. Nurul Alam, Women Vice Chairman Shamim Ara, GM of N Mohammad Plastic Md.
Nazrul Islam, Chittagong Zonal Head of the bank Mohammad Azam, Vice President Md. Faisal Kabir
and other senior officials of the bank participated in the program. A large number of local people
and well-wishers were present in the inauguration ceremony. New branch manager Mohammad Ali
Khan thanked the audience.
Photo: Courtesy
NRBC Bank Ltd launched its Muladi Sub-branch at Muladi, Barisal recently.
Golam Kibria Tipu, MP, Barisal-3 has inaugurated the Muladi Subbranch
as Chief Guest while Golam Awlia, Managing Director and CEO of
the Bank presided over the inaugural ceremony. Md. Harun Khan,
President of Muladi Upazila Jatiya Party, Nur Mohammad Hussaini, UNO
of Muladi Upazila were present in the inaugural ceremony as Special
Guest. Besides, the banking services of 88th Branch of the Bank at
Habiganj has also been started on the same day. Ataur Rahman Salim,
Mayor of Habiganj Municipality inaugurated the Branch as Chief Guest.
High officials of the Bank and distinguished clients, businessmen, local
elites were present in the occasion. During the ceremony, a Munajat was
held seeking divine blessings of Almighty for the welfare, progress and
prosperity of the Bank.
Photo: Courtesy
Walton's country wide mobile fest
with attractive gifts
Bangladeshi handset maker
Walton has started countrywide
Mobile Fest. The aim of
the initiative is to create
awareness on the purchase of
legal registered mobile handsets
made in Bangladesh and
present various information
on Walton mobile phones to
The United Nations warned Thursday
that a surge in container freight rates
could mean higher prices for consumers
next year unless pandemic-fuelled
problems are untangled, reports BSS.
The UN's trade and development
agency (UNCTAD) said global import
price levels could increase by 11 percent
and consumer price levels by 1.5 percent
between now and 2023.
"Global consumer prices will rise
significantly in the year ahead until
shipping supply chain disruptions are
unblocked and port constraints and
terminal inefficiencies are tackled,"
UNCTAD said in its Review of Maritime
Transport 2021 report.
Global supply chains faced
customers in festive ways. The
fest includes various games for
all interested people and the
winners are being honored
with attractive gift items, a
press release said.
The month-long mobile fest
was kicked off from Kamrangirchar
area in the capital on
November 17. Two teams of
Walton Mobile are conducting
the colorful event with each
team has a well-equipped caravan
and necessary arrangements.
The teams will stay in
front of different mobile
phone markets across the
country and arrange events
unprecedented demand from the second
half of 2020 onwards as consumers
spent on goods rather than services
during coronavirus lockdowns.
But the upswing in demand hit several
practical constraints, including
container ship carrying capacity,
container shortages, labour shortages,
congestion at ports and Covid-19
restrictions.
The mismatch led to record container
freight rates "on practically all container
trade routes", according to the report.
"The current surge in freight rates will
have a profound impact on trade and
undermine socioeconomic recovery,
especially in developing countries, until
maritime shipping operations return to
European
stock markets
steady at open
LONDON : European equities
steadied at the open on
Thursday, despite losses
elsewhere on concerns over
soaring inflation, reports BSS.
London's benchmark FTSE
100 index dipped 0.3 percent
to 7,269.87 points, compared
with Wednesday's close.
In the eurozone, Frankfurt's
DAX index rose 0.2 percent to
16,274.78 points and the Paris
CAC 40 was fractionally
higher at 7,158.08.
Concerns over runaway
global inflation continue to
stalk trading floors
worldwide.
Investors are increasingly
fearful massive financial
stimulus-coupled with
resurgent post-lockdown
demand and supply-chain
snarl-ups-could send prices
rocketing even further.
Data out Wednesday
showed inflation close to a
decade-high in Britain and an
18-year peak in Canada.
That came one week after
news that US inflation
surged to the highest level
since 1990.
such as easy and amusing
quizzes, cricket, football, basketball
games for all interested
participants.
Walton sources said that the
winners will have various gift
items including cricket bats
signed by national cricketer
Mehedi Hasan Miraz, T-shirts,
mugs and various souvenirs.
Details and updates of the Fest
can be found on Walton
Mobile's official Facebook
page- facebook.com/Walton-
Mobile.
Wasik Jahan Eshan, Marketing
Coordinator of Walton
Mobile, said: International
standard handsets are now
being manufactured in
Bangladesh with advanced
technologies and latest features
which are registered by
the direction of BTRC. The
ongoing Mobile Fest is raising
awareness among people so
that they purchase and use
registered valid handsets.
Besides, various information
of Walton mobiles are being
presented to them trough
amusing arrangements. The
fest has already received huge
response from the technology
lovers.
UN warns of soaring prices in 2022 due to freight rate spike
normal," said Rebeca Grynspan,
UNCTAD's secretary general.
"Returning to normal would entail
investing in new solutions, including
infrastructure, freight technology and
digitalisation and trade facilitation
measures," she said.
UNCTAD said the pandemic had
magnified pre-existing industry
challenges, particularly labour shortages
and infrastructure gaps.
It also exposed vulnerabilities, such as
when China's Yantian Port shut in May
due to a coronavirus outbreak, causing
significant delays, or when the giant
container ship Ever Given blocked the
Suez Canal in March, snarling global
trade.
Japan plans record
$490 b stimulus to
boost pandemic
recovery
TOKYO: Japanese Prime
Minister Fumio Kishida
announced a record 56 trillion
yen ($490 billion) stimulus
for the world's third-largest
economy Friday as he looks to
shore up its patchy pandemic
recovery, reports BSS.
The fresh stimulus,
expected to be approved by
the cabinet later in the day, "is
enough to deliver a sense of
safety and hope to the
Japanese people", Kishida
said in televised comments.
It will be the third round of
huge relief spending
unleashed by the government
since the pandemic beganwith
former prime ministers
YoshihideSuga and Shinzo
Abe pouring 40 trillion yen
and 38 trillion yen
respectively into the economy
in 2020.
"We have been able to build
economic measures that will
open the new society after the
pandemic," Kishida said at
policy talks between the
cabinet and ruling coalition.
He said the fiscal spending
of around 56 trillion yen was
expected to rise as high as 79
trillion yen including other
elements such as loans from
funds.
The spending will include
one-off cash handouts to
those aged 18 or under, and
will also raise the wages of
nurses and care workers, the
Nikkei business daily and
other major outlets reported.
World Congress on
Information Technology
(WCIT)
brought
opportunities for
Bangladeshi businesses to
engage with a wide number
of foreign partners. Local
organisations conducted
business to business (b2b)
meetings with their
counterparts from 67
countries during the fourday
summit, said ICT
Division in a news release on
Wednesday. Over hundred
of tech experts and policy
makers from 75 countries
participated in the four-day
summit virtually and inperson
at Bangabandhu
International Conference
Centre on November 11-14, a
press release said.
During the summit, World
Information Technology
and Services Alliance
(Witsa) conferred
Bangladesh Prime Minister
Sheikh Hasina with
prestigious "Eminent
Person Award".
Former South Africa
President Nelson Mandela
received the award for the
first time in 2010.
Prime Minister's ICT
Advisor Sajeeb Wazed Joy
received the Asocio
Leadership Award from
Asian-Oceanian Computing
Industry Organization.
President Md Abdul
Hamid inaugurated the
India’s biggest-ever IPO Paytm
slumps by 27pc on market debut
MUMBAI : Indian mobile payments giant
Paytm lost more than a quarter of its value on
its market debut Thursday after raising $2.5
billion in the country's biggest-ever IPO, as
traders questioned whether the loss-making
firm would ever turn a profit, reports BSS.
Asia's third-largest economy has been in the
grip of an initial public offering frenzy, with
start-ups attracting billions of dollars in
investment in a bright spot in the Covidbattered
economy.
But while Paytm has established a leading
position in the fast-growing marketplace for
mobile payments it has lost money in each of
the past three years and its market debut
showed the limits of investor appetite.
Founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma, once
named India's youngest billionaire, wiped
tears from his eyes when the national anthem
was played at an opening ceremony before
trading began at the Bombay Stock Exchange.
Referring to the phrase in the anthem
"Bharat bhagyavidhata"-"the one who will
define the fortune of this country"-he said
Paytm has "actually done that".
But the company's shares dived at the open
and finished at 1,650 rupees ($21), down more
than 27 percent from their IPO price of 2,150
rupees.
"There is a lot of euphoria for the digital
space and that seems to now be subsiding,"
said SMC Global Securities analyst Saurabh
Jain. "These companies are coming out with
IPOs at scorching valuations and it's
anybody's guess what valuations are correct,"
he told AFP.
"It is very difficult for a company like Paytm
to turn profitable. They have the scalability but
they are not able to make money through their
business model." Following the debut,
Paytm's market capitalisation fell from an IPO
valuation of $20 billion to about $13.6 billion
at the close of trade.
Rakesh Mehta, a 49-year-old Kolkata-based
international conference on
November 11. Prime
Minister's ICT Adviser
Sajeeb Wazed Joy presented
the keynote paper in a
session on the first day of the
conference.
The world renowned
professionals in technology
participated in the
conference.
Among them, Internet
pioneers Vinton Gray Cerf
and Radia Joy Perlman,
World Wide Web founder
Sir Timothy John Berners-
Lee, Witsa secretary general
James H Poissant, AliPay
general manager Cheng
Guoming, We Robotics
founder Patrick Meyer and
Intel Corporation chairman
Omar Ishrak participated in
the meeting in hybrid mode.
Ferdousi Qadri, a
Magsaysay Prize-winning
scientist known as the Nobel
Prize in Asia among local
experts, and Senjuti Saha, a
microbiologist and director
of the Child Health Research
Foundation in Bangladesh,
also attended the event.
The conference
highlighted the successes
and achievements of Digital
Bangladesh.
It discussed the latest
rice exporter, said he had bought 12 shares
worth 25,800 rupees in Paytm, encouraged by
Sharma's bullishness about his firm.
"I was shocked to see the price when it
opened. I didn't get much of a chance to sell,"
Mehta told AFP.
"I was planning to sell 50 percent for listing
gains and hold the rest. Now I have no choice
but to hold on. If it goes anywhere close to my
purchase price, I will definitely sell. I wouldn't
want to risk holding it further."
Sharma-a schoolteacher's son who says he
learned English by listening to rock musicretains
a 14 percent stake in the business,
worth $2.4 billion at the IPO price but
approximately $540 million less by the close
of trade.
Other shareholders include Chinese tycoon
Jack Ma's Alibaba group and associate Ant
Financial, along with Japan's SoftBank and
Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway.
Ant Financial sold 3.5 percent of its 28
percent stake in the IPO to meet regulatory
requirements that no shareholder should own
more than 25 percent of a listed company.
Alibaba continues to own another six percent.
Paytm's platform was launched in 2010 and
quickly became synonymous with digital
payments in a country traditionally
dominated by cash transactions.
It has benefited from the government's
efforts to curb the use of cash-including the
demonetisation of nearly all banknotes in
circulation five years ago-and most recently,
from the pandemic.
Nearly 22 million Indian shop owners, taxi
and rickshaw drivers and other vendors
accept payments as low as 10 rupees ($0.13)
using Paytm's ubiquitous blue-and-white QR
code stickers.
The platform had 337 million customers at
the end of June, according to the company's
regulatory filing. In 2020-21 it handled
transactions worth more than $54 billion.
Summit expands Bangladesh engagement in business
Sri Lanka ends farm
chemical ban as
organic drive fails
COLOMBO:Sri Lanka
abandoned its quest to become
the world's first completely
organic farming nation on
Sunday, announcing it would
immediately lift an import ban
on pesticides and other
agricultural inputs , reports
BSS.
The island country has been
in the grips of a severe
economic crisis, with a lack of
foreign exchange triggering
shortages of food, crude oil and
other essential goods.
Authorities had already
walked back restrictions on
fertiliser imports last month for
tea, the country's main export
earner.
But ahead of planned farmer
protests in the capital, Sri
Lanka's agricultural ministry
said it would end a broader ban
on all agrochemicals including
herbicides and pesticides.
State Minister for ICT Junaid Ahmed Palak on behalf of Prime Minister's
ICT Advisor Sajeeb Wazed Joy received the Asocio Leadership Award from
Asian-Oceanian Computing Industry Organization. Photo: Courtesy
additions of modern and
smart technologies like IoT,
BigData, Machine Learning,
and Robotics keeping in
mind the Fourth Industrial
Revolution.
State Minister for ICT
Zunaid Ahmed Palak said
the international conference
brings opportunities to
exchange of experiences
with stakeholders and
experts in technology from
different countries.
"The knowledge sharing
will contribute to the
growth, development and
development of IT
connectivity," he said.
United Commercial Bank Limited (UCB) received two excellence awards in
the category of 'Online Acquiring Business' and 'Domestic Debit Business'
from MasterCard recently. Planning Minister M. A. Mannan, MP handed
over the awards to Arif Quadri, Acting Managing Director, United
Commercial Bank Limited. The awards are the recognition to United
Commercial Bank Limited from MasterCard as valued partners and UCB's
contribution to innovation and success.
Photo: Courtesy