BMW sale slidly fall

The German group BMW said Friday that 2009 sales slipped by 4.7 per cent as the luxury car market was hit by the global recession, but added it expected to sell more than 1.3 million autos this year. Group sales fell to 50.68 billion euros ($70.64 billion), according to a statement that provided provisional results. Final results are to be published on March 17, and should show the group achieved a pretax profit last year, it said.

Mukesh Ambani, Mittal among world’s powerful bil lionaires

Mukesh Ambani and steel baron Lakshmi Mittal have been featured by the US magazine Forbes among the world's most powerful billionaires. The Forbes has named influential people across the world which have great wealth plus political power as well as industrial might. 'A few plutocrats have the mix of money, industrial might and political prowess to earn a spot among the world's most powerful billionaires,' the magazine stated. The list includes the likes of Michael Bloomberg who is the mayor of New York City and also owns 88 per cent of news and data giant Bloomberg LP. Forbes estimates his fortune at $17.5 million. Others on the list are billionaire Sebastian Pi era who won Chile's presidential election, media and banking titan and prime minister of Italy Silvio Berlusconi and Lebanonese premier and industrial heir Saad Hariri. About Mukesh Ambani, Forbes stated: 'Ambani controls oil and gas conglomerate Reliance Industries. With a market value of more than $73 billion, the firm is India's biggest independent company.' Besides, the world's largest steel maker Lakshmi Mittal has also been named in the list and has a market value of $65 billion.

Samsung Electronics back in profit

Samsung Electronics Co returned to profit in the fourth quarter as demand for flat screen televisions and mobile phones helped push sales to a record high, underlining Samsung's rise to the top tier of global technology companies. The company, a major producer of consumer electronics products and components that make them work, earned 3.05 trillion won ($2.64 billion) in the three months ended December 31 on a parent basis, it said in a statement Friday. Samsung does not release a consolidated net profit figure. Samsung said, however, that sales on a consolidated basis — which includes the performance of its overseas and domestic subsidiaries excluding financial businesses — reached a record 136.29 trillion won or nearly $118 billion at Friday's exchange rate.

Eurozone unemployment problem rise

One in 10 workers across Europe's core euro currency area is now unemployed, according to new European Union data issued on Friday that showed Spain bearing the brunt of a jobless recovery. The human cost of structural economic adjustment post-recession could be seen when the seasonally- adjusted unemployment rate for the 16 euro countries hit a miserable 10 per cent in December. The EU's Eurostat agency estimated that an extra 87,000 people fell out of work in the weeks before Christmas — down from the 102,000 people joining the benefit queues in November. It was the highest rate since the currency was launched a decade ago and up from a downwards-revised 9.9 per cent in November. Initial figures for November published earlier this month had pegged the eurozone rate at 10 per cent. Across the 27-nation EU, the rate hit 9.6 per cent in December, up from 9.5 per cent and corresponding to 163,000 more people unemployed. The statistics agency says more than 23 million people were out of work across the world's biggest open trading bloc, 15.763 million of whom were in the eurozone. That meant that in the last year, 4. 628 million people joined the ranks of the jobless, 2.787 million of whom were in the core euro area. Spain's rate hit a massive 19.5 per cent, although only very slightly up from the previous month. Separate data from Madrid showed that the unemployment rate in Europe' s fifth-largest economy soared to 18.83 per cent throughout the fourth quarter of 2009, with a total of 4.326 million people out of work, up more than one million from a year ago. Experts have repeatedly expressed fears of a 'double-dip' recession on the Iberian peninsula — itself struggling with huge deficits way above EU targets.

Microsoft in profit

Microsoft said Thursday that second- quarter net profit hit a record $6.66 billion on unprecedented revenue driven by demand for the new Windows 7 operating system. Microsoft reported that its revenue surged 14 per cent to $19.02 billion in the fiscal quarter that ended December 31. 'We saw record revenue and record profit, driven by strong demand for Windows 7 and PCs,' Microsoft chief financial officer Peter Klein said during a conference call with analysts.

Import increase in Bangladesh

The country's overall import increased by more than 20 per cent during the second quarter of the current financial year, according to the Bangladesh Bank data. Import orders for capital machinery rose by 24 per cent during the October- December period. The trends of increasing imports, especially capital machinery, indicate increase in industrial investment, said the central bank officials The increase in the overall imports has also been attributed to the growing demand of the essential items such as fertiliser and petroleum products. Letters of credit worth $411 million for importing machinery were opened during the said period of 2009-10 financial year as against $330 million during the corresponding period of the previous financial year. Most of the orders were placed from sectors such as textile, readymade garment, pharmaceuticals and packaging industry. Central bank governor Atiur Rahman said the rise in imports of capital machinery indicate that the overall industrial sector was gaining momentum and it showed increasing confidence among investors. 'We hope the upward trend of import order for capital machinery will continue as major economies are recovering from the global recession,' he added. The central bank statistics showed that the settlement of letters of credit for overall imports increased by more than 22 per cent to $2.11 billion in December alone from $1.717 billion in November. Meanwhile, the value of overall import orders showed an increase in January due to rising trend of prices of commodities including food and edible oil in the global market, according to the Bangladesh Bank. Imports of essentials such as wheat, sugar and onion also increased in terms of both quantity and value in December compared to the previous month. The import of wheat increased by 100,000 tonnes to 416,000 tonnes in terms of quantity, sugar by 85,000 tonnes to 225,000 tonnes and pulses by 11,000 tonnes to 64,000 tonnes during the period.

Onion and sugar price rise in Bangladeshi market

The prices of onion and sugar increased further in the city's markets over the week. Onion per kilogram was retailed for Tk 34-Tk 40 on Friday in the city, up by Tk 6 in just three or four days, as decrease of supply from India has caused a fresh hike in its prices. Each kilogram of sugar cost between Tk 58 and Tk 60, up by Tk 4 in a week, on Friday in various retail outlets in the city. The price of onion was declining in the previous few weeks when the early harvested local stocks of onion hit the market, but essential spice became dearer due to the shortage in India. During the off-harvest months at least two-third of Bangladesh's demand for onion is met by India, but the dependence remains significant even after the harvest of local onion. Traders at Shyambazar told New Age that unusual rains a couple of months back damaged the crop in the major onion producing regions, and the dip in export by neighbouring countries is affecting Bangladeshi markets unfavourably. Bangladesh, which imports around half a million tonnes of onion annually, is the largest market for Indian onion exporters. Market sources said that the fresh uptrend in sugar prices in the international market has made Bangladesh's import-dependent sugar market volatile, and the crisis in India has played a major role. Sugar price has shot up by Tk 8 per kilogram in a month and doubled in a year. The Trading Corporation of Bangladesh's daily market report shows that the retail price of sugar was Tk 31- 34 per kilogram on 28 January, 2009. The previous period of volatility in the international market pushed up the sugar price to a record Tk 66 per kilogram in mid-September last year. Alleged hoarding and supply manipulation by a section of refiners and wholesalers had caused the September crisis, and the retail price came down to Tk 48-50 by the middle of December last year.