BUSINESSES have been affected most from the current turbulent political situation. Both the export and the domestic businesses have been passing through a difficult time.

Investment in Bangladesh has been taking a steep rise, with sustained growth from 2009 and policy regimes becoming more conducive. Since time immemorial, Bangladesh has harboured the spirit of free enterprise and innovative entrepreneurship, which is well-knit into the economic fabric of Bangladesh.

It is true what Dr Seuss had said. If only we try to think, we can think of so many things, in different dimensions and beyond parameters and across boundaries. And that is what sparks creativity.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is recognised as a powerful engine for economic growth.

"POLITICAL stability is crucial for all areas of the economy, including exports, investment, business confidence, and industrial and agricultural production," says Hossain Khaled, president of Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI).

CONSIDERED as one of the fathers of rocket science, Braun – whose list of achievements included building a booster rocket that helped put the human race on the moon – was a leading intellectual of the twentieth century.

ACCORDING to the National Industrial Policy 2010, any firm employing more than 10 but less than 25 workers is called a micro-enterprise.

The global financial and economic crisis started in 2007 as an aftermath of the housing sector bubble coupled with aggressive lending practices in the US sub-prime mortgage market and lax regulation of the financial sector.

On one hand we have the standards set by the sole quality control institute of Bangladesh, the Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI), while on the other we have those laid down by the Pure Food Rules, 1967.

Banking sector is an important component of the financial system that mobilises resources for productive investments in a country which in turn contributes to economic development.

On August 15, India's Independence Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a national mission of financial inclusion. Called the Prime Minister's People's Wealth Programme, it envisions bank accounts for all Indians. In its first phase, ending August 14, 2015, the target is 7.5 crore accounts.

Capital market plays an important role in the economic development of a country. Research studies conducted worldwide indicate that there is a high degree of positive correlation between the size of the capital market measured in terms of market capitalisation and the level of economic development. In case of Bangladesh, the capital market's movement is not only important for economic development but it is also important in the context of maintaining social harmony and ensuring a healthy political atmosphere.

Dhaka stock market started functioning in 1956. Sixty years have passed since then. But the Bangladesh stock market remained immature and failed to be an important force in shaping the economy of the country.

Those who say that the Bangladesh capital market has already had enough reforms and also the policy support, they are mainly outsiders; they did not have any stake in the market directly.

IT is with great pleasure that we present to you a three-part special supplement series beginning today to mark the 24th founding anniversary of The Daily Star.

Following the worldwide pattern of a limited role of government in industrial and commercial activities and divesting of government owned enterprises into private hands; Bangladesh too has been doing this for decades.

SERVING the citizens through electronic governance or “eGovernance”, is more essential for the developing countries than forthe developed and less populousones.

The export structure of Bangladesh looks like a 'tadpole'- an early phase of a frog's life cycle where a big upper part of the body is linked with a shallow middle part and a long tail in the lower part. A limited number of 'dynamic' export products at the upper part dominate Bangladesh's export basket.

The US Secretary of State in the 70s, Dr Henry Kissinger, after the birth of our nation, infamously dubbed Bangladesh as a 'bottomless basket' because it was considered to be a country with no hope.

Bangladesh’s garment exports increased from USD 6.8 billion in 2005 to USD 19.9 billion in 2012, recording a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.6 percent.