Rejaul Karim Byron

The year 2020 began with a cloud of uncertainty hanging over the horizon. The novel coronavirus was spreading in Europe, the destination of over 60 percent exports from Bangladesh, after wreaking havoc in China, its largest trading partner.

The government will import at least 10 lakh tonnes of rice from different countries to boost the food grain reserve amid growing concerns over the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.

A joint venture company that includes China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) has been awarded the Cox’s Bazar airport runway expansion work for Tk 1,568.86 crore.

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused Bangladesh Tk 89,500 crore in GDP losses at current prices in the last fiscal year, according to a summary report of the government.

The government is going to allow the private sector to import six lakh tonnes of rice with 25 percent duty to stabilise the rice market.

Bangladesh’s external sector came under stress in January after the outbreak of coronavirus disease in China, the country’s largest trading partner, slowed global trade, thus impacting the economy to some extent.

Bangladesh is set to graduate from the group of the least-developed countries but will face some challenges during the transition period because of the devastating impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, said a United Nations agency.

Factory activity in Bangladesh rose 4.39 per cent year-on-year in August as the economy embarked on a journey to recovery from the wreckage caused by the coronavirus pandemic, official data showed.

Development spending rose 2.66 per cent to a five-month high in November although the overall implementation is yet to receive a significant boost because of the slowdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic, official data showed yesterday.

The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council yesterday extended a project to install prepaid gas meters in Dhaka households, which will see 1.2 lakh more prepaid connections by December 2022.

The workers who lost their jobs due to the Covid-19 fallout across three sectors -- garments, leather and footwear -- are about to finally receive Tk 3,000 per month as financial assistance.

Although Bangladesh achieved food security and improved access to food, eight percent of the households where the urban poor live still go to sleep with empty stomachs, reveals a government survey.

State-run Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation’s net profit dropped 14.21 per cent in the last fiscal year because of a decline in fuel sales amid the pandemic-induced demand collapse.

Bangladesh is on track to graduate to a developing country from a least developed one as a UN body estimates that the country’s scores in all three criteria would be much higher from the graduation threshold next year.

Officials hinted at a new stimulus package yesterday amid fears of a possible second wave of Covid-19 and the subsequent setback for the economy which has only slightly recovered from the impacts of shutdown.

With the installation of the last span yesterday, the multipurpose Padma Bridge has connected the backward southwest region with the rest of the country and, more importantly, removed the last great geographical barrier.

The government yesterday approved a proposal to set up a 55-megawatt wind power plant in Bagerhat, a move that may give a much-needed fillip to its efforts to tap the country’s unrealised renewable energy potential.

Multilateral lenders are joining with the government to boost financing for micro entrepreneurs in order to rejuvenate the tens of thousands of pandemic-hit micro and small enterprises.

The government’s decision to suspend purchase of new and replacement vehicles under all expenses has been extended for the remaining half of the current fiscal year to reduce unnecessary expenditure in the face of a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority (Beza) is set to invest Tk 4,367 crore on a fresh project aimed at developing a greener Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Shilpa Nagar (BSMSN).