The government plans to build a food grain silo at Mongla port to arrest pilferages from imported cargoes.

A Bangladesh-Vietnam joint venture between the local Toma Construction & Co Ltd and the Vietnamese Asia Slipform Corporation has been selected to build the concrete silo and jetty at a cost of Tk 444.35 crore.

A further Tk 91.65 crore would be spent to build other facilities for the godown, said officials of Directorate General of Food (DG Food).

The silo, which will have the capacity to store 50,000 tonnes of wheat, will be built at Joymonirghol on the bank of Pashur river, about 17 kilometres from the Mongla port.

"We have already issued a notice of award to the selected bidder," said Ahmed Hossain Khan, director general of DG Food, while adding that various related works, such as land purchase and earth filling, have already been completed.

"Now the main silo and jetty will be built. We are expecting the completion of construction by June 2014.”

The silo will be the country's fifth, with the four existing silos built between the years of 1967 and 1970 with World Bank financing.

“But no silo was built in the last four decades,” said Khan.

The construction of the silo has been on hold since 1989, but gathered pace upon receiving Tk 200 crore as grant from Japan Debt Cancellation Fund in 2009.

At present, food grains are unloaded manually from the port -- and 90 percent of imports are unloaded from the lighter vessels without even getting weighed.

“It causes abnormal shortage of imported grains,” said Gazi Ur Rahman, director of the Mongla Port Silo Project.

He said around 10 percent of the imported cargoes at the port are lost every year, with the missing volume reaching as high as 1.21 lakh tonnes last decade.

“The percentage of pilferage at the Chittagong port, on the other hand, is very low, because of a silo there.”

The silo at Mongla will also ensure proper weighing and curtail the scope of losses, said Rahman.

“It will also facilitate proper distribution of grains in the southwest and northern parts of the country,” he added.

To ensure smooth transportation of wheat from the silo, the communications ministry plans to construct 17.5 kilometres of road and a bridge on the Mongla river to connect the port town with Joymonirghol, said DG Food officials.

The DG food also seeks Bangladesh Railway to establish a railway track up to the silo.

The four existing silos have 2.25 lakh tonnes of total storing capacity.

News: The Daily Star/Bangladesh/15th-Oct-12

 Bangladesh Bank (BB) will start to exchange newly printed notes of different denominations from today (Sunday) on occasion of Eid-ul-Azha and Durga Puja for meeting the additional demand for cash during the upcoming festivals.

The new notes will be distributed from the Dhaka office and other offices of the central bank until the last working day before Eid.

The new notes will also be available in 11 branches of nine commercial banks in the city, said a BB statement on Saturday. Anyone willing to collect the notes can visit those 11 bank branches in the city.

Like every year, this year the BB will gradually release notes and coins worth more than Tk 200 billion in the festivals, said a BB official. It will issue the new coins and notes of various denominations, such as Tk 2, Tk 5, Tk 10, Tk 20, Tk 50, Tk 100, Tk 500 and Tk 1,000 on the occasion of Eid and Puja, he said.

Along with the new banknotes, all existing paper notes in the same denominations will also remain in circulation.
The central bank has already taken necessary measures against circulation of counterfeit currencies in the cattle markets.

Another BB official said that the BB had urged home and law ministries, and police and Rapid Action Battalion to take necessary measures against fake currencies so that counterfeit notes could not enter the money market during the festivals.

The name of the banks braches are: Press Club Branch and Elephant Road Branch of Agrani Bank, Ramna Branch and Bangabandhu Branch of Sonali Bank, New Market Branch of Janata Bank, Sadarghat Branch of Pubali Bank, Bashundhara City Market Branch of Social Islami Bank, Gulshan Branch of Dutch- Bangla Bank, Kawran Bazar Branch of Southeast Bank, Malibagh Branch of Prime Bank and Jatrabari Branch of Islami Bank Bangladesh Ltd. respectively.

The central bank would launch campaign in print and electronic media about the counterfeit notes to create awareness among people.

Besides, the teams of the BB and the commercial banks would also visit the cattle markets to detect the counterfeit notes.

The BB asked all deputy commissioners to take measures at the main cattle markets of the districts to detect the counterfeit notes. Generally, during Eid demand for new notes increases many folds as it has become a custom to distribute fresh notes among the kids and youngsters as Eid selami (gift) in Bangladesh. Many Hindu people also pay money to their relatives on the occasion of Dashami of Durga Puja. The money is meant to be spent in the Puja fair.

News: The Daily Independent/Bangladesh/14th-Oct-12

DHAKA: External Panel of the World Bank (WB), comprising eminent international experts, arrived here early today (Sunday) to work with the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) to probe the alleged graft in Padma Multipurpose Bridge (PMB) project.

The three-member WB panel, consisting of well known experts, will hold meeting with the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) officials some time today.

Luis Moreno Ocampo, a former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, is leading the delegation.

The other member of the panel are -- Timothy Tong, former commissioner of the Independent Commission against Corruption in Hong Kong, and Richard Alderman, a former director of the UK Serious Fraud Office.

Panel chief 60-year-old Ocampo is an Argentine lawyer and the first prosecutor of the ICC. He previously worked as a prosecutor in Argentina, famously combating corruption and prosecuting human rights abuses by top military commanders in the Trial of the Juntas.

The panel will submit reports to the World Bank and also share its findings with the government of Bangladesh and other co-financiers of the project.

Earlier, on October 5, the World Bank appointed the three-member panel of international experts to assess the credibility of the investigation by the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) into the alleged corruption in the Padma Bridge project.

News: The Daily Independent/Bangladesh/14th-Oct-12

Atiur Rahman

Bangladesh's economy will grow by more than 6.5 percent in the current fiscal year although the global expansion is under-pressure, the central bank governor said.

"I think it will grow by more than 6.5 percent," Atiur Rahman told The Daily Star in Tokyo on Friday.

The governor is now in the Japanese capital to attend the semi-annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

His comments came as the IMF earlier forecast that Bangladesh's economy would grow by 6.1 percent in 2012 calendar year. Naoyuki Shinohara, a deputy managing director of the lending agency, said Bangladesh's GDP would grow by 5.8 percent in the current fiscal year.

"It is difficult to forecast the exact growth. We have noticed that historically Bangladesh's growth remains a bit higher than the projection made by the IMF. It has happened all the time and we have seen the pattern historically," Rahman said.

"But I would say that the IMF estimate reflects the global reality. It has forecast India's growth rate at 4.9 percent. Compared to India, IMF has made a positive projection about Bangladesh."

The governor, however, said the IMF estimation does not say that Bangladesh is being able to make up the losses in growth caused by the global meltdown through internal demand.

"Our agriculture is growing. I think it will grow by about 4 percent this year. That will make up some of the losses. Together, there is no chance the growth is going below 6.5 percent. It is not unrealistic too."

Rahman said the growth is under pressure worldwide. "There is no doubt about it. Definitely, Bangladesh will receive some of the heat."

He said the central bank has been cautious in terms of going for inclusive growth. "The quality of growth will ensure that even with the small growth we will have a better growth."

The governor attended a number of programmes and discussions at the IMF-WB annual meetings in the last several days.

"Everybody was saying that Bangladesh is actually a unique story. I have talked to officials from a number of countries. They said Bangladesh is a contrarian when it comes to the growth and inflation story. The Indian governor told me that Bangladesh is a bit separate from the bunch of the countries. We are an outlier in a positive sense."

Rahman said the country is maintaining its growth, the inflation is going down and the exchange rate is stable. In some cases, it is appreciating.

"The countries and the IMF are appreciating Bangladesh."

Rahman said the foreign currency reserves of Bangladesh also drew appreciation from the WB.

"Our current reserves of $11.5 billion can finance imports of three and a half months. If it touches $12 billion then we will be able to finance imports of four months.

"The WB officials are saying that Bangladesh's development story is very unique."

Rahman said he is more optimistic about Bangladesh's story after listening to the IMF managing director and the WB president.

"Both of them are not talking about one-track story. They are considering multiple factors and are going beyond the conventional kind of monetary management and policy story. They are talking about the multi-disciplinary kind of story. They are terming the WB as a solution bank."

He said he finds similarity of the central bank with the WB. "Our central bank is not a mono-track kind of central bank. We are encouraging banks to go for inclusive financing. We are allowing them to go green. From all sense, there was a resonance what the WB president has said and what we are doing in Bangladesh."

"We have already started to address the issues such as the financial stability, supervision and regulation as have been mentioned by the IMF managing director."

He said the capital adequacy requirement under the Basel-III would ultimately be good for the banking sector. "We have fixed capital adequacy ratio at 11-plus keeping that in mind, which will go up in 2018."

The governor said the WB is giving more emphasis on the regional cooperation. "We are also working on the issue. From the discussions, I found that Bangladesh is the most important country in case of regional hub."

The Bangladesh's delegation to Tokyo led by the finance minister also held meetings on the Padma bridge project.

On the issue, the governor said he thinks things are going positively. Confidence is building up.

He said, during this quarter the government's borrowing from the banking sector has been minimal, which is helping inflation come down.

The government and the central bank will have to maintain the existing level of coordination between them and improve it. "We can tell the world that many of the things that the WB president and the IMF MD said in Tokyo have already begun or were done."

"We are one of the few countries in the world who are really going for the inclusive growth, prudent monetary policy and we are tight while spending for the luxury goods. We are loose in case of productive agriculture and SMEs. We are working on the two legs."

Rahman also held meetings with top regional officials from Moody's and Standard and Poor's -- the world's two leading rating agencies.

"They also said they see no reason why the growth of Bangladesh will go below 6 percent."

It will remain 6 percent plus due to the performance of the agriculture sector, the governor quoted the officials as saying.

Rahman met Mauro Leos, regional credit officer of Moody's, and Elena Okorochenko, managing director of S&P's for Asia and the Pacific, in Tokyo.

Rahman said they also appreciated the government's decision to allow exchange rate flexibility when the taka was continuing to fall against the US dollar in November last year.

"They said: 'You had the guts to open your exchange rate'," Rahman said.

News: The Daily Star/Bangladesh/14th-Oct-12

TOKYO: The United States is making progress on getting its fiscal house in order though much more needs to be done, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told fellow financial leaders Saturday. The comment came just hours after the US government announced that the budget deficit had topped $1 trillion for a fourth straight year despite a modest improvement thanks to stronger economic growth.

“It is important that we in the US enact a balanced framework to bring down our fiscal deficit and debt over several years, while continuing to provide support for jobs and growth in the short term,” Geithner told a meeting of the International Monetary and Financial Committee during the annual meeting of the IMF and World Bank, which is being held in Tokyo.

The Treasury Department said Friday that the deficit for the 2012 budget year totaled $1.1 trillion, though a 6.4 percent increase in tax revenues thanks to stronger growth helped contain the deficit. The risk of the US running into a “fiscal cliff” of tax increases and deep spending cuts next year unless the Obama administration and Congress resolve a deadlock over the budget has overshadowed the gathering of top financial officials. Such a prospect would deal a heavy blow to the economy, eroding progress made since the 2008 global crisis.

The overwhelming emphasis of the Tokyo gathering has been on coddling fragile growth around the globe. On Friday, IMF managing director Christine Lagarde urged that countries not sacrifice growth for the sake of austerity. The pace of government debt reduction must be tempered by spending to help get the unemployed back to work, she said.

Balancing those sometimes competing priorities is the central puzzle facing policymakers as the world economy slows further, even in dynamic Asia, Lagarde said.

Greece, Spain and other European countries laboring under massive debts have slashed spending and raised taxes, seeking to restore confidence in their public finances.

News: The Daily Sun/Bangladesh/14th-Oct-12