Rejaul Karim Byron

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.

Halfway through an interview at the Planning Commission, Planning Minister MA Mannan is asked about the logic behind the inordinate number of projects that are in implementation at any given moment.

Bangladesh could achieve only a little more than half of the targets set by the World Bank Group for 84 projects and programmes in the last four years, says a draft performance review report of the World Bank Group.

Coal-fired Payra power plant in Patuakhali began test production yesterday, making it the first large-scale plant to come into operation since the Awami League swept to power a decade ago.

Most of the private banks have raised their capital base in line with the Basel III requirements three months prior to the deadline set to reach the global regulatory standard.

The project cost of building a rail bridge over the Jamuna river has increased by Tk 3,216 crore even before the start of physical work.

Farmers may get 50 to 70 percent incentive while buying agricultural machinery and also avail low-cost loans, as the government looks to pivot to farm mechanisation amid rising costs and growing labour shortage.

The man with the plan, is the impression one walks away with after an audience with Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal. Later, one is invariably met with the question: was he being a little too optimistic and naive?