Rejaul Karim Byron

Bangladesh’s export and import activities will both be affected by the coronavirus pandemic but the country would not face much difficulty in attaining its GDP growth target of 8.20 per cent for this fiscal year, according to an official document.

Poorly managed exchange rate, ad hoc-based incentive and existing domestic protection levels will not make Bangladesh’s exports competitive and help diversify both products and destinations, according to a new plan of the government.

Nine out of 10 children experience some form of violent disciplining by their caregivers, according to a recent survey by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) and Unicef, released yesterday.

Major Japanese large firms are to invest about $6.4 billion to implement six infrastructure projects in Bangladesh under the public-private partnership model.

A section of well-off people have apparently made a mad dash for post office accounts right after the government tightened rules on investment in high interest-bearing national savings certificates.

Between 1990 and 2017, the increase in the road crash fatality rate per capita was three times higher in Bangladesh than that across South Asia, according to a World Bank report.

It took the government almost nine years to draw up a project for relocating chemical factories and warehouses from Old Dhaka’s Nimtoli where an inferno claimed 124 lives in 2010.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has approved a masterplan to free all major rivers in and around Dhaka and Chattogram cities from encroachment and pollution by 2030.

Savings accounts in post offices saw soaring deposits in recent years thanks to high interest rates offered by the government to tempt people in the suburbs and rural areas to use formal channels for parking their funds.

The rot starts at the top, it is often said. And it is this pandemic that the central bank is looking to tackle in the new Banking Companies Act.

Teletalk, it often seems, is overindulged.

The interest rate on government Treasury bills and bonds, the main instruments for bank borrowing, doubled in the last one year -- a development that will fuel budgetary expenditure and may discourage private sector credit, both of which are already sources of concern.

Since time immemorial Bangladesh has been taking on aids, grants and financial assistance from the global community. But now, it is providing debt relief to another nation, in a testament of the progress the country has made.

It has been four years since a band of hackers broke into this Bangladesh Bank’s account with the New York Fed with the intent to pull off what would have been the biggest cyber heist in history.

The way unknown hackers hatched plans to steal money from the Bangladesh Bank’s reserves with the New York Fed using the most sophisticated banking and payment channels as well their near-perfect preparation and timing will render many detective stories and Hollywood movies average.

The government’s target to create 1.13 crore new jobs in the next five years does pose a significant challenge, despite the country’s high economic growth rate, according to a revised five-year plan from the planning ministry.

There was a time when Bangladeshi finance ministers would land in Paris with a briefcase in hand to seek financial assistance from donors.

The World Bank yesterday praised the progress Bangladesh achieved in recent years but apprehends a struggle ahead for the low tax revenue and banking sector’s poor condition.

Age is the price of wisdom, it is often said. And an audience with the immediate past finance minister, AMA Muhith, calls to mind that saying.

The current vulnerable state of the banking sector steeped in default loans poses the biggest danger to sustenance of Bangladesh’s tremendous growth momentum, said the International Monetary Fund.