Stocks traded on the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) posted substantial gain on Tuesday as investors shook off the worries on a high court show cause notice regarding directors’ compulsory share purchase.

“Market moved up as investors did not pay heed to the possibility of directors’ getting relief from buying at least two percent shares of their respective firms,” said a stock broker.

At the end of the day, the benchmark DGEN General Index of the DSE ended at 5,214 points, gaining 115 points or 2.25per cent.

On the issue of the writ, SEC-supportive stance of Attorney General boosted up investors’ confidence, said IDLC in its regular market commentary. As sentiment went up, market observed a surge in fresh fund injection, pushing turnover up by 35 percent above previous day's value, it added.

In this vibrant scenario, stocks with potential director purchases remained buoyant. Meanwhile, fuel and power sector continues its rally, largely driven by high trade volume of state owned companies, it added.

Grameenphone got a boost as a proposal of SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) tax reduction by the Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh, made investors optimistic.

Day’s uptrend was visible throughout the session, starting with a 70 points surge in first 5 minutes, and followed by rally across all sector, pushing the key market index above 5,200 points level.

The broader DSE All Shares Price Index, DSI, also climbed 99 points or 2.17 per cent to 4,373 points while the DSE-20 index of blue-chip shares gained 56 points or 1.49 per cent to 3,816.

Single day turnover value posted significant rise to stand at Tk 9.29 billion, up by 35 per cent compared to Tk 6.89 billion in the previous session.

Gainers beat losers as out of 259 issues traded, 220 advanced, 31 and eight remained unchanged.

Grameenphone topped the turnover chart with shares worth Tk 766.99 million changing hands followed by Titas Gas, Beximco Limited, Aftab Automobiles, Jamuna Oil, MI Cement, Summit Power, Lafarge Surma Cement, Olympic and Meghna Petroleum.

Tallu Spinning was the day’s highest gainer posting a rise of 9.97 per cent while Trust Bank was the session’s worst loser.

The Daily Sun/Bangladesh/ 11th April 2012

The board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) sits in Washington today to decide on a US $1 billion credit facility for Bangladesh.

“We hope the government will get $ 1 billion under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) of the global lender though a $ 1.5 billion proposed loan from the World Bank to construct Padma Bridge is now hanging on corruption charges”, a senior official of the finance ministry said yesterday.

The proposed loan, which tags 11 conditions including automatic price adjustment of fuel oils to be fulfilled by December, 2012, would ease the country’s balance of payment and foreign exchange reserve problems, he added.
The fund will come in six tranches, of which the first $167 million installment will be released for the current fiscal year, if the board approves the proposal.

At present the ECF carries a zero per cent interest rate and will have to be repaid by the country within 10 years. If the loan is approved, Bangladesh will get IMF credit after nine years.

Meanwhile, finance minister AMA Muhith has already informed the IMF the details on what steps the government will take in the next three years to fulfill its conditions.

Earlier, Prime Minister’s energy adviser Tawfiq-E-Elahi Chowdhury said progress in price hike of petroleum products, tagged with the release of the ECF fund, will also be placed at today’s board meeting.

The Energy Division is likely to increase fuel oil prices again before the announcement of next budget in June, he said, adding that the process might begin from next month.

Energy Division may also adopt a formula soon which will put in place a system to automatically adjust domestic retail petroleum prices in line with their international rates, he added.

The 11 conditions of the loan include demutualisation of Dhaka and Chittagong stock exchanges by December this year, among others.

As per the conditions, the government should bring down budget deficit to five per cent of GDP, but a finance ministry report showed that budget deficit may increase to 5.1 percent at the end of current fiscal due to huge fuel subsidies.
Drastic fall in receiving foreign assistance may also result into widening budget deficit.

Meanwhile, different government agencies have already made significant strides in implementing the conditions entwined with the IMF loan facilities. The cabinet has approved the draft value added tax law which will be placed in the next session of parliament as a bill.

Economists and experts, however, expressed mixed reaction about the IMF loan conditions.
Dr AB Mirza Azizul Islam, former adviser to a caretaker government, told daily sun recently that the ECF fund will help ease the foreign currency crisis of the government.

“We need foreign currency to strengthen local currency taka,” he said, sounding a note of caution that the government should not take IMF loan accepting the painful conditions that might go against the interest of the country.

Islam said the IMF’s policy reform conditions will not benefit the government as it’s not possible to implement all the conditions.

Ashan Mansur, executive director of Policy Research Institute, told daily sun that the government needs the low-interest credit of IMF to ease its balance of payment problems.

Implementation of IMF conditions will also streamline the economy and help reduce inflation rate, he added.

Professor Anu Muhammad, who teaches Economics at Jahangirnagar University, told daily sun that Bangladesh did not require the ECF loan as the foreign exchange reserve of the central bank has increased significantly in the last five years.

The remittance flow from expatriate Bangladeshis is enough to solve the balance of payment problem, he added. He termed IMF as a controversial global lender, adding that it wants countries like Bangladesh to fall under it loan trap.

Showing example he said, Malaysia achieved high economic growth without financial help from global lenders like IMF and WB, while countries like Brazil and Argentina faced economic hardship availing their loans, he added.

The Daily Sun/Bangladesh/ 11th April 2012

Head of Consumer Banking, Standard Chartered Bank Sandeep Bose looking at his colleagues donating blood during the programme of Standard Chartered Bank along with Bangladesh Red Crescent Society at the Bank's Head Office recently.

As part of ongoing employee volunteering initiatives, Standard Chartered Bank has recently organized a blood donation program along with Bangladesh Red Crescent Society at the Bank's Head Office. A total of 179 bags of bloods were collected in a single day with participation from employees almost all departments including female employees of the Bank.

Financial Express/Bangladesh/ 10th April 2012

The companies, supplying different types of products including ATM cards to the banks, are allegedly being forced to open accounts at some respective banks for getting their payments.

However, the bank insiders told the FE that there was no official policy or decision of having mandatory account at the concerned banks for giving payment to the supplier companies against their services and products.

"No bank can officially force the supplier companies (or any other person) to open account," they said, adding that some bank officials might informally have asked or requested the supplier companies to open accounts at their own banks to mitigate the banks' ongoing deposit crisis to some extent.

An official of such a victim supplier company told the FE that they were verbally, in some cases in written, were asked to open account at the concerned banks if they wanted to get payment of their services and products provided to the banks.

The banks' officials expressed their inability to issue any cheque or pay order against any payment of any kind of service or product, he said.

When contacted, a concerned bank official, against whom such a claim was made, denied the allegation and said that they always give payments to the supplier companies through 'cheque or pay order'.

Expressing helplessness over the calls of most of the banks-cum-clients to open accounts at their branches, a victim supplier-official posed a question, "Is it possible or logical to open separate accounts at all banks?"

"We can neither open many account nor directly deny their requests because they are our clients," he said.

Financial Express/Bangladesh/ 10th April 2012

Bank Asia and Hajj Agencies Association of Bangladesh (Haab) on Monday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on receiving Hajj fees from Haab and its members and help them with withdrawal of the deposited money from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for making payment of house rent and other approved costs, says a press release.

Under the agreement, the Haab and its member agencies will open accounts and obtain transaction services across all the branches of Bank Asia and use the Bank’s services for receiving Hajj fees and remittance processing to Saudi Arabia (Mecca), as per foreign exchange guidelines of Bangladesh Bank.

The Bank will issue Visa and Master card debit/credit to Haab members without any membership fees and maintain their accounts with the Bank. The Haab will also enjoy prepaid Hajj Card facility without any charge.
In presence of Md Mehmood Husain, president and managing director of the Bank, Mohammed Roshangir, deputy managing director and chief business officer (Corporate) of the Bank and Jamal Uddin Ahmed, president of Haab, signed the agreement on behalf of the respective sides.

Deputy Managing Directors of the Bank--Aminul Islam, SM Khorshed Alam and Humaira Azam, along with  Sajjad Haider, senior vice president and head of corporate liability marketing and Abdur Rouf Bhuiyan, first assistant vice president, corporate liability marketing and vice president of Haab Golam Kibria and finance secretary Mozammel Hossain Kamal among others, were present.

The Independent/Bangladesh/ 10th April 2012