Trust Bank view exchange meet held

Trust Bank has organised a view exchange meeting with rural entrepreneurs for processing and marketing bio fertiliser in the country.

Nirmol Chandra Bhokto, General Manager (GM), Bangladesh Bank, MM Haikal Hashmi, Deputy Managing Director (DMD) of Trust Bank Limited and Bashir Ahmed, Business Manager, ACI attended the meeting at Joydevpur Saturday, said a press release.

TIM Rawshan Zadeed, Head of SME and Agriculture, Trust Bank presided over the meeting.

About 100 entrepreneurs of Bio-gas and Integrated Agro Complex attended the meeting.

The Daily Sun/Bangladesh/ 19th June 2012

Commodore (retd) Mohammad Ataur Rahman, former chairman of Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited, inaugurates a branch at Araihazar in Narayangonj Monday

Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited (IBBL) inaugurated its 271th branch at Araihazar in Narayangonj Monday.

Commodore (retd) Mohammad Ataur Rahman, former chairman of the bank, inaugurated the branch as chief guest. Managing Director (MD) Mohammad Abdul Mannan chaired the function, said a press release.

Araihazar upazila chairman Md Shahajalal Miah was present at the function as special guest.

Abdus Sadeque Bhuiyan, Executive Vice-president (EVP) and Head of Human Resources Division, Mohammad Mohon Miah, EVP and Head of Dhaka South Zone were present at that time.

Besides, local elites Ataur Rahman Angur, Shamsul Haque Molla, Md Moniruzzaman, Nuruzzman Khan, Mazharul Haque Bhuiyan, Amanullah Aman, and Md Sundor Ali, attended the function.

Chief guest urged the business people, clients and well-wishers to consider IBBL as My Bank. Local dignitaries also thanked the bank authority to open the branch in the area.

The Daily Sun/Bangladesh/ 19th June 2012

The government has decided to provide low-interest loan to the potential entrepreneurs of the country’s film industry.

The decision came on Thursday at a meeting at the information ministry with SM Harun Rashid, joint secretary of the ministry, in the chair.

The meeting decided that the film industry entrepreneurs would get loans of Tk 6 million to Tk 10 million from the commercial banks with an interest rate of less than two percent.

“Bank loans will be provided to the persons who are engaged in film making and distribution” a senior official of the information ministry said.

He also said that the government has already decided to include the film industry in the Small and Median Industry category as per the national industry policy -2010.

Concerned officials of Bangladesh Bank, National Board of Revenue (NBR) and information ministry, filmmakers-- Morshedul Islam and Catherine Masud were present at the meeting.

The Daily Sun/Bangladesh/ 19th June 2012

The textile and jute ministry seeks to put the default loans of private sector jute mills owed to four state-run commercial banks in "block accounts" to stop interests from piling up in a bid to rescue the mill owners from a heavy financial burden to some extent.

Banking Division sources said the total of default loans of private jute mills have not been calculated yet, but it is roughly Tk 12 billion.

The ministry will send a letter to the Finance Division in this regard to arrange a meeting with the stakeholders to discuss the ways to ease the huge burden of loans of the private jute mills in state-owned Sonali Bank, Janata Bank, Agrani Bank and Rupali Bank.

The decision came at a meeting of the Consultative Committee on Jute at the jute ministry earlier this month.

Jute and Textile Minister Abdul Latif Siddique presided over the meeting where the managing directors of the four state-run banks were also present. The meeting also decided to declare jute goods as an agriculture product within this year.

During the meeting, the jute minister requested the managing directors of four state-owned commercial banks to give low-interest loans to the real jute farmers.

The meeting also co-opted Jahangirnagar University Professor Khurshid Begum in the consultative committee lead various researches on jute politics and to explore new markets at home and abroad.

Default loans of private jute mills in four state-run banks till June 30, 2009 will be ‘blocked’ for 30 months with previous five years’ interest. The amount will be repaid in installments with an interest rate of 8 percent for 10 years, the meeting decided.

According to the decision, the private jute mills would also be provided with 7 percent interest rate facility on working capital loan, which would be ensured by the Finance Division, the Finance Ministry Monitoring Cell and Bangladesh Bank (BB).

The local jute exporters purchase jute at Tk 2200-2400 per tonne, but have to export jute items at Tk 1200-1400 per tonne, meeting sources said.

Due to loan burden, the number of private jute mills is decreasing in the country despite a high demand of jute goods in the global market, Professor Khurshid Begum told daily sun on Monday.

A research on the country’s jute sector is examining the ways to revive the country’s one of the oldest export sectors as we have comparative advantage in this particular sector, she added.

The Daily Sun/Bangladesh/ 19th June 2012

Commercial Bank of Ceylon PLC signed a Participation Agreement with Bangladesh Bank recently under 'JICA assisted Financial Sector Project for the Development of Small and Medium Enterprise Financing in Bangladesh'. Dilip Das Gupta, Senior General Manager of CBC seen exchanging the documents with Senior Officials of BB and JICA representative.

The Financial Express/Bangladesh/ 17th June 2012