Helal Ahmed Chowdhury, CEO and MD of Pubali Bank Limited, seen with a visiting Italian delegation led by Massimo Castellucci, Executive Director, Global Head of Business Development Area in Dhaka recently.

News: The Daily Sun/Bangladesh/9th-Oct-12

M Fazlur Rahman, President and Managing Director of AB Bank Limited and Sriyan de Silva Wijeyeratne, Country Manager of Microsoft Bangladesh, exchange documents after signing an agreement at a meeting in Dhaka recently.

AB Bank Limited has renewed its enterprise agreement and select-plus agreement with world-leading software company Microsoft.

M Fazlur Rahman, President and Managing Director of AB Bank Limited and Sriyan de Silva Wijeyeratne, Country Manager of Microsoft Bangladesh recently signed the agreements, said a press release.

The Enterprise Agreement (EA) is executed in partnership with the Thakral Brothers (Private) Limited.

Riazul Islam, CIO, AB Bank, Pubudu Basnayake, Chief Operating Officer, Mohammed Asif, Head of Enterprise Sales and other senior officials of Microsoft Bangladesh were present on the occasion.

Shahzaman Mozumdar, Bir Protik, led the Thakral Brothers’ team.

Under the agreements, Microsoft will deliver various applications and servers software to AB Bank to use its office productivity, identity and network management, datacenter management, advance messaging and collaboration solutions.

AB Bank will also use Microsoft products for IT security,

virtualisation and project management. A significant number of applications will be used under Microsoft platform using Windows Server and SQL Server database, within entire network.

News: The Daily Sun/Bangladesh/9th-Oct-12

Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith hands over a certificate to Md Ahsan-uz Zaman, Additional Managing Director of MTBL at a function in Dhaka recently.

Mutual Trust Bank Limited (MTBL) received merit award of ICAB for ‘Best Presented Annual Report 2011’ under category of private sector bank.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh (ICAB) organised the award giving ceremony at a city hotel recently, said a press release.

Abul Maal Abdul Muhith, Minister for Finance handed over a certificate to Md Ahsan-uz Zaman, Additional Managing Director of MTBL at a function in Dhaka.

News: The Daily Sun/Bangladesh/9th-Oct-12

SINGAPORE: The World Bank cut its economic growth forecasts for the East Asia and Pacific region on Monday and said there was a risk the slowdown in China could worsen and last longer than many analysts have forecast.

"Unlike the rest of the region, China is experiencing a double whammy-the growth slowdown is driven by weaker exports as well as domestic demand, in particular investment growth," World Bank Chief Economist for East Asia and the Pacific Bert Hofman said at a briefing in Singapore.

He stressed, however, that the World Bank, like many economists, still expects China to have a soft landing as seen from the Bank's revised 7.7 percent growth forecast for this year and 8.1 percent for next year.

The World Bank earlier on Monday released its latest East Asia and Pacific Data Monitor, warning China's that slowdown could accelerate.

In the report, the international lender said that ambitious investment plans announced by several local governments in China could face funding constraints, "not least because governments are feeling the pinch of a cooling real estate market, which lowers land sales revenues".

The World Bank said the central government was unlikely to come up with a major fiscal stimulus package as policymakers were concerned about a rebound in home prices and a possible reversal of hot money flows.

News: The Daily Sun/Bangladesh/9th-Oct-12

Disbursement of $150 million Asian Development Bank (ADB) loans for the development of country’s capital market is facing uncertainty as most of the concerned organisations failed to meet conditions imposed by the lender.

Earlier on September 26, the Economic Relation Department (ERD) directed Insurance Development Regulatory Authority (IDRA) to take necessary measures to meet conditions by September 30 to get the first tranche of the loans.

It also said warned the IDRA that failure to fulfill the lender’s conditions would create hindrance to disbursement of the loans.

The ADB agreed to provide Tk 300 million (Tk 24 billion) loans for the 2nd Capital Market Development Programme (CMDP-2) to be implemented under supervision the Banking and Financial Institute Division of the Finance Ministry.

This first tranche of the fund, which is scheduled to be disbursed in two phases on condition of implementing 28 terms, was supposed to be disbursed by September 30, 2012.

To strengthen the insurance sector, the government agreed to fulfill the conditions within the stipulated time for recapitalising all the insurance companies in accordance with Insurance Act, 2010 and adopting investment regulations as required by section 41 of the Insurance Act, 2010.

The conditions are formation of an advisory committee, a central ratings committee, a dispute resolution committee, management of IDRA fund, appointment of CEO, fees for registration rules, obligations of insurers to rural and social sectors, fees for licensing branches and offices of insurers, application for grant of license.

The conditions include demutualisation of stock market, reducing bank risk exposure and margin loan rate of merchant banks, and formation of national capital market within 15 months.

The ADB also recommended forming a steering committee to look after execution of the conditions.

Earlier, the ADB set twenty-eight conditions for disbursement of $300 million loans for implementation of the second phase of the CDMP.

IDRA chairman, could not be reached despite sever attempts over cell phone for his comments on failure to implement the conditions.

News: The Daily Sun/Bangladesh/9th-Oct-12