The outlook for the global base metals industry remains stable, said the Investors Service of Moody’s, an international credit rating agency, in a report released yesterday.
Average prices for aluminum, copper, nickel and zinc will remain near 2013 levels in the next 12 to 18 months, but will continue to show volatility, said the Moody’s report entitled “Slow Global Recovery Will Keep Base Metals Prices Range Bound.” Global demand for base metals, however, will grow modestly, and “recovery will be uneven,” Moody’s said, adding that Industrial production will remain the main driver of growth. Geologically, demand will grow at mid-single-digit rates in Asia, improve slowly in United States and Latin America, but remain sluggish...
Due to the ongoing political impasse, the country’s RMG sector losses in billions of taka every day. Foreign apparel orders worth $3.96 lakh were cancelled while the exporters spent $3.08 lakh on air shipment during the first three days of the current month, according to the data collected by BGMEA’s research and development team.
The research unit collected data from 10 exporters to assess the overall losses caused by the blockade. Many small factory owners may go bankrupt due to failing shipment on time.
To help the exporters recover their losses due to ongoing political unrest, the central bank has slashed 1.0 per cent interest on its export development fund (EDF) scheme for the next six months.
Under the amended rules, exporters are allowed to get such foreign currency loan through commercial banks on payment of 1.50 per cent interest instead of 2.50 per cent earlier.
The Bangladesh Bank (BB) issued a circular in this connection Sunday and asked the commercial banks to follow the revised interest rate on the EDF scheme from the date of issuance of this circula...
The apparel orders from foreign buyers would decline by 30 percent owing to the turbulence prevailing in the country that is affecting the Bangladeshi garment industry, said Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters’ Association (BGMEA) president Atiqul Islam, after a recent meeting with Labor and Employment Minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain and foreign buyers in Dhaka.
Islam said foreign buyers have expressed concern over the present situation affecting the garment industry in Bangladesh, which is forcing them to shift their readymade garment orders to other countries, reports BSS.
Around 30 percent of apparel orders would decline owing to the political turmoil which is severely affecting the garment industry of the country, he adde...
In terms of comprehensiveness, precision and clarity, the Banking Companies (Amendment) Act 2013 is likely to bring ambiguities among the stakeholders; the shortcomings of the Act, therefore, should be addressed immediately to ensure proper corporate governance in the banking sector, opine speaker at a conference organized by Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh (ICAB) at its auditorium in the city on Friday.
Md. Habibur Rahman Bhuiyan FCA, Deputy Managing Director, Islami Bank Bangladesh Ltd and S.M. Abdul Hamid, FCA, Deputy Managing Director and CFO, IFIC Bank Bangladesh Ltd jointly presented the keynote in the conference titled ‘Changes in Banking Companies (Amendment) Act 2013 and its Analytical Review & Impact’.
Investors in emerging market companies are looking more closely at environmental, social or governance (ESG) issues before they buy as the Bangladesh factory collapse.
Cajoled by developed world governments and shocked by disasters, almost all emerging fund managers in a survey by UK development finance arm CDC to be published this week consider ESG to be integral to their investment strategy, and in many deals they regard it as a “fact of life”.
It is a sharp contrast to a few years ago, when emerging market investors saw sustainable strategies as an irritant imposed by worthy multilateral lenders, or “the dead hand of eco-fascism”, according to CDC’s ESG director Mark Eckstein.
Once the preserve of religious and ethically minded funds and the development finance arms of major...
