Bangladesh Bank (BB) will assess the loss to the political violence during the ongoing countrywide blockade and recurring hartals, a central bank official told BSS  yesterday, reports BSS.
“The central bank will assess the losses on monthly basis and will compare the current situation with the cost of political violence that the country saw in 2013”, BB executive directive M Mahfuzur Rahman said. The country’s leading think-tank, Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), estimated that the loss during the shutdowns and blockade from July to December, 2013 was Tk 50,000 crore.
The country’s leading trade-body, Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) already assessed that economic loss to the recent countrywide ceaseless blockade and recurring shutdowns would so far be no less than Tk 75,000 crore.
According to FBCCI, the major losers were apparel sector with Tk 30,000 crore, wholesale and retail business with Tk 15,000 crore, agriculture and poultry with Tk 9,518 crore, transport sector with Tk 9,500 crore, tourism with Tk 6,500 crore and frozen foods with Tk 250 crore.
Rahman, also the spokesperson of the central bank, said all the banks have been instructed to send information to BB on a prescribed form by February 19, providing necessary information about economic damage of the political violence and the data about allocation of loan, disbursement, recovery and outstanding amount.

Trust Bank Limited inaugurated its corporate head office at Shadhinata Tower, Dhaka Cantonment in the city recently. Vice Chairman of the bank and Adjutant General of Bangladesh Army Major General Md Mahfuzur Rahman inaugurated the office as the chief guest. Members of the executive committee, Managing Director & CEO Ishtiaque Ahmed Chowdhury and Deputy Managing Director and senior executives of the bank were present.

Rahel Ahmed has recently joined the Prime Bank Limited as its Deputy Managing Director (DMD). Mr Ahmed has almost 20 years professional experience in the banking sector of both domestic and international markets with multinational and regional banks, in various capacities spanning over the wholesale banking domain including specialisation in Islamic banking. He started his career with ANZ Grindlays Bank as a Management Trainee and moved up the ladder in their corporate banking division focussing mostly on commercial and local corporate clientele base. Thereafter, he worked for Standard Chartered Bank in Bangladesh and successfully led their local corporate and international corporate business before moving abroad to take new challenges. During the last 7 years, he served in two of the largest regional banks of Middle East and other regions. Mr Ahmed holds his MBA in International Business from Maastricht School of Business.

Bangladesh Bank yesterday asked six state banks not to file "certificate cases" against farmers who have defaulted on agro-loans.

The central bank also directed the banks to reschedule the loans and withdraw all cases filed against farmers. A certificate case is filed by local magistrate courts against defaulter farmers.

“Moral persuasion could work to recover the loans,” SK Sur Chowdhury, deputy governor of the central bank, told reporters after a meeting with managing directors of the six state banks at the BB headquarters.

The finance ministry recently issued a letter to the central bank, asking it to take initiatives to release the farmers from certificate cases. Six state banks -- Sonali, Janata, Agrani, Rupali, Bangladesh Krishi Bank and Rajshahi Krishi Unnayan Bank -- filed certificate cases against more than two lakh farmers, according to BB data. Of them, arrest warrants were issued against 10,000.

Default loans involving the certificate cases stood at Tk 570 crore as of November 30, 2014, up by Tk 18 crore from January the same year. “It is not acceptable that the farmers will have to face cases. It is also unfortunate that farmers are on the run due to the arrest warrants,” Chowdhury said.

The deputy governor also directed the banks to take awareness programmes so that farmers do not become defaulters wilfully.

BB data showed that these six state banks filed 2,504 certificate cases against farmers in November last year while the courts settled only 1,710 cases in that month. In January 2014, the banks had filed 3,785 certificate cases while the courts settled 2,499.

The courts issued arrest warrants against 10,224 farmers between 1991 and 2014, as they failed to repay their loans, BB data showed.

Another BB official said the six state banks filed certificate cases with the executive magistrate's courts to recover default loans worth up to Tk 50,000 from each farmer.