BANGLADESH government follow to WORLD BANK to appoint Rupali Bank CEO

The government is likely to amend the memorandum of association of
Rupali Bank to appoint a chief executive officer in the bank
following instruction of World Bank, official sources said. 'We
will place a proposal before the finance minister for his approval
for bringing amendment to the memorandum of association of Rupali
Bank for appointment of a CEO in the bank,' said a senior official of
finance ministry. According to the Article 158 of the memorandum
of association of Rupali Bank, the board of directors of the bank
cannot appoint a CEO and general managers, he said, adding that' s
why the provision was needed to be amended for appointing the CEO by
the board. The WB, in its recent aide-memoire under the enterprise
growth and banking modernisation project, instructed the government
to amend the memorandum of association of Rupali Bank for
appointment of a CEO and four general managers in the bank. It
also instructed the government to provide Rupali Bank with management
support by appointing a CEO and four general managers in the key
areas of operation as soon as possible as its current state of affairs
was of grave concern. The major activities of Rupali Bank remain
suspended for about two-and-a-half-year, and its financial condition
and operational competence also deteriorated considerably. The WB
mission visited Bangladesh in June to evaluate the performance of
four state-owned commercial banks — Sonali, Rupali, Agrani and
Janata. Meanwhile, the Rupali Bank had passed a resolution at an
emergency general meeting in October last empowering its board of
directors to appoint a CEO. The finance ministry, however, did not
accept the resolution.

5 cos to issue IPO work tk 58.5cr

Five companies have applied to the stock market regulator seeking
approval to issue their initial public offering worth Tk 58.5 crore in
total. The five companies are Crystal Insurance Company Ltd, RN
Spinning Mills Ltd, Industrial and Infrastructure Development Finance
Company Ltd, Keya Cotton Mills Ltd, and Vantage Electrical and
Electronics Ltd, according to the website of Dhaka Stock Exchange.
Crystal Insurance Company has applied to float nine lakh shares of Tk
100 each totalling Tk 9 crore. Incorporated on November 11, 1999,
the company commenced its business on the same day. The
authorised capital of the company is Tk 20 crore and paid up capital
Tk 6 crore, according to the company's draft IPO prospectus. ICB
Capital Management Ltd is the issue manager. RN Spinning Mills
Limited has sought permission to raise Tk 30 crore, issuing 30 lakh
shares of Tk 100 each. Incorporated on November 4, 2004, the
company commenced its business operation of producing synthetic yarn
for export-oriented dyeing/textile industries from July 2007. The
authorised capital of the company is Tk 150 crore and paid up capital
some Tk 67.30 crore. The proceeds from IPO will be used for loan
repayment and expansion of business activity of the company, the
company has said in its draft IPO prospectus. Industrial and
Infrastructure Development Finance Company Ltd has applied to float 5
lakh shares of Tk 100 each totalling Tk 5 crore. Incorporated on
December 19, 2000, the company commenced its operation May 2001.
The authorised capital of the company is Tk 100 crore and paid up
capital some Tk 32.11 crore including bonus share for the year 2007.
The proceeds of the present issue are planned to be utilised for
financing company's operational activities in the course of normal
business. Keya Cotton Mills has sought SEC's permission to raise
Tk 5 crore, issuing 50 lakh shares of Tk 10 each. The company has
also sought Tk 5 as premium for each share. Incorporated on June
15, 2004, the company commenced its business operation in 2006.
The authorised capital of the company is Tk 100 crore and paid up
capital Tk 24.70 crore. The principal activities and operations of
the company are manufacturing and selling cotton yarn, the company
has said in its draft IPO prospectus. The proceeds of IPO will be
used for repayment of long-term liabilities and lease liabilities.
Vantage Electrical and Electronics has applied for permission to
float 9.5 lakh shares of Tk 100 totalling Tk 9.5 crore. The
company was incorporated on May 28, 1998. The authorised capital
of the company is Tk 50 crore and paid up capital Tk 9.95 crore.
The company is engaged in manufacturing and selling of electrical and
electronic power supply and power support products, according to the
draft IPO prospectus of the company. IPO proceeds will be used to
pay off existing bank loan and increase its existing capacity.

BANGLADESH BANK suggests new law to curb withful defaulters

Bangladesh Bank has proposed a default loan law which will hold bank
officials responsible if the amount of default loan rises in the
commercial banks. Besides, the law will offer the sick industry
defaulters' special waiver of their default amounts. The central
bank has proposed the default loan law to cut number of the wilful
defaulters. 'We have already sent the proposed law to the finance
ministry for their review,' said a senior official of the central
bank. The official said the finance ministry also formed an
'Executive Council' to devise a way out for the sick industry
defaulters. The sources said the central bank prepared the new
default loan law following an instruction of finance minister AMA
Muhith to the central bank for a new law to check intentional loan
defaulters. According to the proposed law, the central bank will
be able to take legal action against the bank officials in case of
their failure to reduce the loan defaults. Under the proposed law,
the amount of the default loan will have to be rescheduled within
one month. In the case of default loan of the sick industry, the
government will give up to Tk 10 lakh rebate to the owner of the sick
industries. Condition of cost recovery rate and down payment of
sick industry will be relaxed for loan defaulters of the sick
industries. Besides, the central bank will introduce online
programme with the commercial banks for updating the Credit
Information Bureau their default loan status. According to the
existing rule, the CIB gets default loan information from the
commercial banks on monthly basis.

Hitachi ships first terabyte HDD

Like death and taxes, larger hard drives are inevitable, and the
latest biggest, a two terabyte (2TB), 7200 RPM hard disk drive comes
from the usual suspect, Hitachi, which also shipped the first 1TB
drive back in 2007, according to media report. The new, colossal,
2TB Deskstar 7K2000 blends high performance and high capacity with low
power and other eco-friendly features designed to enable Energy-Star
rated computers and other high performance desktop systems.
Leveraging a solid track record for reliability, the new Deskstar
7K2000 is now in its fourth- generation using the company's unique
five- platter design with relaxed bit density and proven
perpendicular magnetic recording technology. Couple this with an
ultra-quiet operation, a 32MB cache and a 3Gb/s SATA interface, and
the new Deskstar 7K2000 is the ideal desktop drive for power users,
gamers or anyone looking for a big, fast hard drive. In addition
to the new 2TB Deskstar 7K2000, Hitachi GST is also refreshing its
high-volume desktop hard drive family. The new 7200 RPM Deskstar
7K1000.C family will deliver up to 500GB per platter, and will come
in capacities of 160GB to 1TB, hitting the capacity and performance
sweet spots for mainstream desktop applications. Like previous
generations, both the 7K2000 and 7K1000.C Hitachi Deskstar drives
feature industry-standard 512-byte sector formatting, a patented ramp
load/unload design to increase shock protection, and Thermal
Fly-height Control (TFC) to maintain a consistent fly-height during
the read/write process for added data reliability. Volume production
and worldwide availability of the new Deskstar 7K1000.C will begin
in Q3. Leveraging the company's eighth-generation power management
technology, including power-saving innovations like the Hitachi
Voltage Efficiency Regulator (HiVERT™), the Deskstar 7K2000 and
7K1000.C deliver outstanding power management and thermal emissions
to help manufacturers meet energy compliance targets for their
computer systems and storage-based solutions. For example, the new
Deskstar 7K2000 offers 10 percent idle power savings over previous
generations, and on a watt-per-GB basis, idle power has improved
more than 120 percent. The new Deskstar 7K1000.C is expected to
deliver best- in-class power efficiency at 4.4 watts or less idle
power, which is the best in the industry when compared to current
generation, competing desktop drives.

Sugar refiners want zero import duty

With global sugar price hitting 28-year peak, local refiners have
demanded immediate withdrawal of import duty to help them procure
enough stock before the sweetener's price shoots up further. In an
urgent letter to the Prime Minister's Office, commerce ministry and
industries ministry on Thursday, local refiners drew attention of
the government to the global sugar market volatility. They urged for
incentives to encourage sugar imports to keep local supply and price
of the sweetener stable in coming months. 'Considering unusual
increase in raw sugar price, the industry requests the government to
withdraw duty on imports,' the Bangladesh Sugar Refiners Association
wrote. Local market is dominated by four to five private sector
refineries, which source raw sugar mainly from Brazil and also import
some quantity from Thailand and elsewhere. Raw sugar is subject to
a flat import duty of Tk 4,000 per tonne. Bangladesh consumes more
than 12 lakh tonnes of sugar annually while the state-owned sugar
mills produced only 75 thousand tonnes in the just-ended fiscal
2008-09. The private sector refiners pointed out that opening of
the fresh letters of credit for raw sugar imports were almost stopped
in the past couple of weeks due to the wild hike in global prices.
The association argued that zero duty may lure refiners into booking
advance orders for coming months. They claimed that sugar price is
still lower in Bangladesh compared with the present level of
international prices. Retailing between Tk 42 and Tk 44 a kilogram,
sugar became costlier by at least 30 per cent in the past couple of
months as refiners adjusted their prices to global price increases.
Delwar Hossain, a leader of Bangladesh Sugar Merchants Association,
said wholesale sugar market remained shaky and local supply could be
hampered when local refineries would run out their stocks. Taherul
Haque, a leading commodity broker said, 'Sugar future has really
become unpredictable now.' Global sugar price soared by $120 a
tonne just in 10 days and reached $519 at New York Commodity
Exchange last weekend, setting its highest price in 28 years.
Projected shortfall in production in Brazil led to global sugar
market volatility and poor output in India sent the world's second
largest sugar producer to import market, further worsening the
situation, market sources said. According to media reports, at
least two months back the Indian government had withdrawn entire
duty on sugar imports to help build a safe stock as sugar price
doubled to 37 rupees per kg in one year in India, whose sugar output
is feared to fall to 150-155 lakh tonnes this year from 263 lakh
tonnes in the year back. Sugar is retailed at 50 rupees in
Pakistan. 'Not only by withdrawing duty, the government should do
everything possible to encourage sugar imports to keep its supply
smooth in the coming months,' said Taher, whose company represents
ADM, world's 3rd largest grains company.