Md Fazlur Rahman

The number of mobile phone subscribers for the operator went up by 0.8 per cent year-on-year to 3.28 crore in the quarter. Of them, 2.05 crore are internet users,

Remittance flow to Bangladesh is likely to grow by 8 percent in 2020, compared to that of the previous year.

Diversion of remittances from informal to formal channels due to the difficulty of carrying money under travel restrictions amid the coronavirus pandemic, incentives granted to remitters and damages inflicted by the recent floods helped Bangladesh bring the remittance flow back to the positive territory in 2020, according to the World Bank.

Banks and other financial institutions can now lend more to trade-based cottage, micro, small and medium enterprises (CMSMEs) as the central bank yesterday raised the annual ceiling of the loans for the sector by 10 percentage points.

Internet users may face reduced speeds in some areas for five days starting from the wee hours of today due to maintenance work on the submarine cable connecting Chennai to Singapore.

The government’s bank borrowing plunged 90 per cent to Tk 3,033 crore in the first quarter of the fiscal year because of the slower development activities and lower than expected spending on subsidies and paddy and rice procurement.

Nearly half of mobile subscribers in Bangladesh pay for the value-added services they have not subscribed to as service providers stealthily activate them without their consent on their phones, according to a probe by the telecom regulator.

Foreign nationals working legally and illegally in the local, foreign and multinational companies in Bangladesh send home billions of dollars every year, but there is no reliable data that can capture the true extent of the outbound remittance.

The debate over Bangladesh’s GDP growth forecasts is back again. There is wide variation in the projections made by the multilateral development agencies for the current fiscal year amid deep uncertainties about the near-term trajectory of the global economy as the pandemic is still raging.

Bangladesh surpassing India in per capita GDP in 2020 as forecast by the International Monetary Fund is not a fluke and is rather a reflection of the country’s steady economic growth and a solid foundation, said economists yesterday.

Bangladesh is set to surpass India in terms of per capita gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020 thanks to robust agriculture production, exports and remittance despite the coronavirus pandemic, in another testimony to the country’s steadily growing economy.

People are increasingly returning to jobs they had lost to the coronavirus pandemic despite the persisting health risks and the wage growth failing to keep pace with the rebounding economy.

The contribution of garment factories to the fund set up to provide financial support to garment workers fell 14.20 per cent to Tk 55.83 crore last fiscal year due to the coronavirus pandemic and some banks’ negligence.

Bangladesh’s economy may make a U-shaped recovery if the government spends proactively and can tap into international resources even though output is set to fall drastically in the next two fiscal years because of the prolonged coronavirus pandemic, World Bank said yesterday.

The number of mobile phone subscribers in Bangladesh almost returned to the pre-Covid-19 level in August, signalling the strengthening of the economic recovery underway from the devastating crisis.

All stakeholders must work together to enable long-term economic recovery of Bangladesh while addressing the immediate need to save and sustain lives, said a top banker.

Transactions through mobile financial services rose 16.6 per cent year-on-year to Tk 41,403 crore in August, which shows the growing popularity of the digital money in Bangladesh, Bangladesh Bank data showed yesterday.

Registration of new firms in Bangladesh rose to an all-time high of 11,110 in the last fiscal year, highlighting the expansion of business activities and people’s enthusiasm about setting up fresh ventures, official figures showed.

The government is aiming to clock more than 8 per cent economic growth on average during the Eight Five-Year Plan period as it hopes that the impacts of the devastating coronavirus pandemic would fade in the second half of the current fiscal year.

A government fund looking to boost exports from Bangladesh is seeking applications from prospective firms for grants to be used to improve their production capacity.