Ratings agency Moody’s downgraded the debt of BNP Paribas , Societe Generale , and Credit Agricole on Friday, citing deteriorating liquidity and funding conditions. Moody’s cut its ratings on the long-term debt of BNP and Credit Agricole by one notch to Aa3, concluding reviews that began in June and were continued in September.

Societe Generale’s long-term debt was cut by one notch to A1.
The downgrades were driven by the increasing difficulties the banks were having in raising funding and the worsening economic outlook, Moody’s said.

The French banks’ ratings are still roughly level compared with their European peers, reflecting their strong retail operations and stable earnings.

The downgrade nevertheless comes at a sensitive time for the banks, which have seen their shares pummeled and when they have been forced to cut their outstanding loans and potential risk as available short-term funding has evaporated.

Source: The Independent/ Bangladesh/ 10th Dec 2011

The country’s burgeoning shipbuilding industry, which is now witnessing a slowdown against the backdrop of falling demand of ships from Europe, awaits multi billion dollar export orders next year. Buyers of Europe, the major destination for Bangladeshi shipbuilders, are now reluctant a bit to provide local shipbuilders with export orders due to the continuous economic jitters that followed the global financial crisis.

Amid the crisis, local shipbuilders are doing extraordinary well because of the country’s unique characteristics of low cost of production and skilled engineers,  one official of leading shipbuilder said.

The government support such as green channel and bonded warehouse facilities and reduction in import duty for raw materials led to the performance, the official added that now the industry needs banking support to compete with archrivals India and Vietnam.

“We have advanced much in building small vessels.
We are not out of the world market and those are placing orders mostly from Europe where financial condition
is not well.

we need banking supports to offset the slowdown,” KM Mahmood ur Rahman, chairman of Bangladesh Shipbuilders’ Association (BSA), told BSS.

Rahman, also president of Highspeed Group of Companies, said banking supports are indispensable for competing with archrivals India and Vietnam.

The supports include Bangladesh Bank’s Tk 200 crore refinancing scheme as committed earlier, scraping bank guarantees, exemption of L/C (letter of credit) conformation costs and arrangements of loans with low interest rates as working capital.

Source: The Independent/ Bangladesh/ 10th Dec 2011

Speakers urged the branch-level bankers to gain professional skills as it is vital for attaining success in the banking sector for overall socio-economic development of the nation. Besides, they also urged them to make their banking activities free from corruption so that the clients could derive total benefits of the banking services.

They were addressing the closing session of a four-week foundation training course of the newly-appointed officers (cash) of Sonali Bank Limited at its training institute here today.

General manager of the Bank Hassan Iqbal addressed the session as the chief guest with assistant general manager Jahangir Alam in the chair.

Besides, deputy general manager Shirin Sultana and trainers of the course Rafiqul Alam, Ashraful Islam, Arshad Hossain and Ashequl Islam also spoke on the occasion.
The speakers highlighted the importance of the Bank in the overall socio-economic development of the country.

Highlighting the importance of enhanced financing to the SME Sector, they also asked the field-level bankers to enhance credit-flow towards the sector.

In this regard, they said the nation would be benefited if the small and medium enterprises are properly financed.

Source: The Independent/ Bangladesh/ 9th Dec 2011

Prime Bank Limited and Apollo Hospital signed a corporate agreement in the city on December 5, says a press release.

lsbahul Bar Chowdhury, deputy managing director of Prime Bank Limited, and Dr Shagufa Anwar, general manager of Business Development of Apollo Hospital, signed the agreement.

The debit and credit cardholders of Prime Bank  will be entitled to enjoy all the corporate facilities covered by the agreement from now. 

AH Majumder, head of cards and vice-president Prime Bank, Farid Ahmed, assistant vice-president, Quazi Anwarul Azim , financial assistant vice-president of of the Bank and Syed Raihan, deputy general manager of Business development and Project of Apollo Hospital, Mahfuz Alam, deputy manager, Mohammad Asharaful Hossain, corporate executive and other officials of Apollo Hospital were present.

Source: The Independent/ Bangladesh/ 9th Dec 2011

The government will seek USD $2 billion loan support from Islamic Trade and Finance Cooperation (ITFC).

A high-powered team, led by economic relations division secretary Iqbal Mahmud, will leave Dhaka for Jeddah today (Friday) to place the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) proposal at a dialogue with ITFC.

Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) Chairman Md Abu Bakar Siddique told daily sun on Thursday.

BPC will procure nearly 700,000 tonnes petroleum fuels for the next calendar year.

“BPC is expected to borrow US$2 billion loan support from ITFC, a sister concern of Islamic Development Bank (IDB),” Abu Bakar said. The IDB has already supported over US $1.2 billion funds to BPC this year with interest rate between 5 percent and 5.5 percent, an official of the BPC said.

Due to frequent loss from high cost imported petroleum products and also for overdue bills, the BPC has been facing financial crisis to import the petroleum fuel this fiscal, sources said.

The BPC would require Tk 11:00 billion subsidy as it sales petroleum fuel in local market against paying high rates for importing those.

Source: The Daily Sun/ Bangladesh/ 9th Dec 2011