Bangladesh Bank yesterday issued a guideline for managing the environmental risks in the financial sectors, said a statement.

All banks and other financial institutions in Bangladesh will have to adopt the guidelines on environmental risk management by June 30 this year.

The environment in Bangladesh is deteriorating significantly and the key areas of decline include land degradation, air pollution, water pollution and scarcity, biodiversity resources and impacts of natural disasters.

So, banks need to protect their financing from the risks arising from the deteriorating environment scenario and climate change, the circular said.

The BB circular also said the cen- tral bank will conduct training programmes, seminars and workshops for the capacity building of the financial institutions.

News: The Daily Star / Bangladesh/ jan-31-2011

Md Fazlur Rahman

Bangladesh Bank and SME Foundation will organise a financing fair in Chittagong in February, to bridge the gap between entrepreneurs and lenders.

The two-day fair at the Engineers Institute in the port city is scheduled to be held on February 15-16. The fair is a part of the government's attempts to extend the much-needed financial services to prospective small and medium entrepreneurs across the country.

The aim of the fair is to create awareness among entrepreneurs about small and medium enterprises (SME) financing products that are available in the market.

It will also facilitate financing through a display of loan products and procedures, and required documents for funding.

It will also support SMEs to prepare new, innovative and demand-driven projects; act as a platform for match-making between the SME entrepreneurs and financial institutions; offer spot advice and guidance to potential SMEs; and identify strategies to reduce procedural bottlenecks in delivering loans to the SMEs.

The fair, which will start at 10:30 am and be open until 8pm, will also feature seminars. Besides, banks will have to answer queries made by entrepreneurs, said an official of SME and Special Programmes Department of Bangladesh Bank.

The participating banks and financial institutions will also offer SME loans directly at the fair, he said. Each lender will lend to at least five entrepreneurs.

Fairs will also be organised at all divisional cities and major district towns, such as Bogra, Comilla and Mymensingh.

fazlur.rahman@thedailystar.net

News: The Daily Star / Bangladesh/ jan-29-2011

Anayetur Rahaman

The Bangladesh Bank (BB) has decided to pay subsidy to the State-owned Commercial Banks (SCBs) who disburse loan to salt farmers at reduced interest rate, a central official said.

The interest rate has been set at 4 percent which previously hovered around 10 to 13 percent for the share croppers, small and marginal salt farmers.

The central bank issued a circular yesterday regarding loan disbursement at reduced rate to help boost salt cultivation in the coastal region of the country.

According to the circular, the Bangladesh Krishi Bank, Sonali Bank Ltd, Janata Bank Ltd, Agrani bank Ltd and Rupali bank Ltd can disburse loan to a salt farmer up to Tk 44,000 for per acre of land.

The loan expenditure heads include purchase of polythene Tk 10,000, drawing water Tk 5,000, labour cost Tk 5,000, land rent Tk 21,000 (maximum) and construction of earth protection with others Tk 3,000.

The loan disbursement begins from the month of December and continues till May of next year, as directed in the circular.

The circular also directed the banks to recover loans within 12 months of disbursement and to submit their interest loss subsidy demands by one month of loan recovery.

As per the BSCIC records, 43,460 farmers were involved in salt cultivating on 67,751 acres of land mainly in Cox’s Bazar with some parts of Chittagong and Satkhira in fiscal year 2009-2010. But the farmers experienced huge loss in last fiscal as the price of per kg salt reduced to Tk 1 while production cost is over Tk 3. The farmers produced 1.71 million tonnes of salt against the target of 1.35 million tonnes in last fiscal.

News: Daily Sun / Bangladesh/ jan-27-2011

Bangladesh Bank will keep on its efforts to restore the normalcy at the bourses and will do everything possible to bring back investors confidence, BB high officials said yesterday.

They, however, ruled out the criticisms that BB initiatives to contain soaring inflation contributed to the debacle of the capital market. Rather, some vested quarters’ interests and somewhat policy makers’ failure were active behind the fall, they observed.

“BB mainly deals with the containment of the inflation through an increased reserve. But, it can’t be blamed for the volatility of the share market,” SK Sur Choudhury, executive director, said.

Choudhury ruled out the scheduled banks’ excessive involvement in the share business saying that banks’ present exposure to the capital market is only 3.58 percent or Tk 125.41 billion of the total market of Tk 3508 billion, which played little role in the debacle.

“You won’t see too much problem in the country’s banking sector, but it would have been in a danger if the central bank didn’t take some timely measures in line with the Bank Company Act,” he told journalists adding that banks are now well below their exposure limit--10 percent of their total liabilities--as of this January.

The heated call money rate has also been tamed to 4 to 8 percent, even lower than the rate set by the regulator, he said adding: “The call money rate rose due to mismanagement in some banks.”

News: Daily Sun/Bangladesh/24 Jan 2011

The Country has achieved the lion share of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) for which it claimed the UN recognition, and it is on the track to achieve the rest by 2015, Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr Atiur Rahman said.

“No denying that country developed much in many sectors in last three decades. GDP growth target has been set at 6.7 percent amid global melt down and the present per capital income stands at US$ 751,” Atiur said.

He was addressing the 10th anniversary celebration of Volunteers Association of Bangladesh (VAB) at Agargaon’s LGED auditorium in the city on Saturday.

Bangladesh attained gender equality at the primary and secondary education. It is committed to enrolling all children in primary schools by 2011 and formulated an elaborate and combined education policy to reach the targets.

Mentioning some major gains in country’s education sector, BB Governor said that there are some challenges also at the secondary and its next level of education in the country.

The Governor also lauded VAB initiative of providing education to 40 thousand underprivileged people.

News: Daily Sun/Bangladesh/24 Jan 2011