ICE Business Times, November 2016

Recognizing the Broader Goal An interview of Runa Khan from Friendship

Contents TIMES

44

P

Interviews

06 From the Editor

Word of Mouth

08 State of Affairs 14 Banking Corner 116 Happening

Columns by

16 Ambassador Mohammad Amjad Hossain 20 Shamsul Huq Zahid

64

22 26 32 36 40 44 59 80 84

H. E. Ahn Seong-doo, Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to Bangladesh Dr. Jim Yong Kim, President, World Bank Group Mahbubul Alam, President, CCCI Sadiq Ahmed, Vice Chairman, PRI Saroj Ayush, Consultant, UNESCAP Runa Khan, Founder and Executive Director, Friendship Md. Anwar Shawkat (Afser), President, DBCCI Meherun N. Islam, President, CEMS Global Neela Manwar, Managing Director, Athena's Furniture & Home Decor

A SPECIAL REPORT ON THE LIGHT ENGINEERING SECTOR IN BOGRA

a global business magazine from bangladesh

Contents TIMES

TIMES

Vol. 7 No. 03 | November 2016

Publisher & Editor Director, International Publications Executive Director Managing Editor Assistant Editor Sub Editor Staff Feature Writer Designer Business Development Finance & Accounts Sales & Distribution

a global business magazine from bangladesh

: : : : : : : : : : : : :

Abul Khair Zeenat Chowdhury Nawshin Khair Tawhidur Rashid Irad Mustafa Shaikh Ashfaque Zaman Asaduzzaman Sk. Yeahhia Md. Nizam Uddin Forhad Mohammad Imran Md. Abdul Alim Md. Nazrul Islam Md. Rubel Khan

ROBOTS ARE TAKING OVER Should we be alarmed?

TIMES

UNLEASHING THE TIGERS

nov 2016

Agora's former CEO reveals their HPI Success Story

TK. 100 | www.ibtbd.net

Special Report

Inside Bogra’s Light Engineering Industry

XI JINPING'S HISTORIC VISIT

What brings the Chinese here and why it matters to Bangladesh

FUNDING THE FORECAST Why climate financing needs immediate attention

NO CONNECTIVITY, NO DEVELOPMENT

CCCI President, Mahbubul Alam, on how Chittagong can become the transnational hub for South and South-East Asia

Banking for a better tomorrow

World Bank Group President, Jim Yong Kim, on how to ensure climate-smart growth and alleviate poverty further

This issue’s Photographs by Din M Shibly Kazi Mukul Mohammad Samiul Wares Omar Faruk Ashraf Uddin Apu Sakib Muhtasim

Editorial & Marketing Queries Let there be light

Light Engineering sector can usher the much needed change in our export portfolio

editor@ibtbd.net or send us a note at www.facebook.com/icebusinesstimes www.twitter.com/BusinessTimesBD

Be sure to visit our website www.ibtbd.net

Features 12 28 48 54 76 86 90 96

98 100 102 106 110 114 121

BCMF 2016 Towards a Better Tomorrow The Agora Turnaround Funding the Forecast Are Robots Taking Over?

Photo Essay: Fostering the Future Saadat Worldwide: In the Land of the Pharaohs Green Delta Insurance: Solutions at Your Fingertips Beyond the Business: Dress for Success An Impeccable Phone for an Executive The Digital Marketing Summit 2016 Redefining the Pixel Raising the Bar 9th South Asia Economic Summit Capital Market Update

Published by Abul Khair on behalf of ICE Media Limited Kushal Centre, Plot 29, Sector 3, Uttara C/A, Dhaka- 1230 and printed at M.K. Printers,189/1, Tejgaon I/A, Dhaka-1208 Editorial and Commercial office: 3rd Floor, House: 4, Block: B, Road: 23 A, Banani, Dhaka 1213 Advertising, Sales, Subscription and Distribution: 01812656961, 01715732425, 01759391168, 01850824294, 01881925963, 01881925962, 01611227676 Tel: 02 55035336-8, 09666773313

* Not all the views expressed in the columns and interviews are the views of the magazine.

FROM THE EDITOR In his best-selling book, Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilizations, Parag Khanna states, “It is time to re-imagine how life is organized on Earth. We’re accelerating into a future shaped less by countries than by connectivity. Mankind has a new maxim – Connectivity is destiny – and the most connected powers, and people, will win.”

Connections with other nations must start through connecting amongst ourselves. As a nation, we have worked on the advancement towards a middle-income country, the fight against diseases, and women’s empowerment. Our endeavor to fight against climate change and eradicate poverty has been recognized by the World Bank.

However, the lack of transparency and the failure to complete numerous mega-projects have led to a loss of faith in the government.

What is the point of such development if it cannot better the lives of those it was made to serve? We must consider the access to these benefits, stop policy logjams, and improve our infrastructural condition in order for each and every person to reap these benefits.

As Mahbubul Alam, President of Chittagong Chamber of Commerce & Industry, has poignantly stated, this connectivity starts with utilizing the potential of the commercial port hub of Chittagong; the city is located in a unique part of Asia that allows it access to the Bay of Bengal and the inland of South Asia. Starting from the port on the South to the North, we must connect within the nation and extend this beyond the border. The South Asian region is one of the most poorly linked regions in the world. We strive to create economic relations and trade benefits throughout the world but we have failed to focus on nurturing the mutual relationship with our surrounding nations. The initiatives to connect South Asia for the progress of every nation in the region has been brought to light; now, the time has come for us to become a beacon for one another.

S TAT E O F A F FA I R S

Word of Mouth

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina attended the two-day BRICS-BIMSTEC outreach summit in Goa along with other World Leaders World Bank Group President, Jim Yong Kim, paid a visit to Honorable Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at her residence in Gonobhaban

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Honorable Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina unveiling the plaques of six projects at the Prime Minister’s Office

08

The Honorable Prime Minister inaugurated the 20th council of Bangladesh Awami League which was held with the theme "Bangladesh is marching down the highway of development - now is the time to hold our head high."

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina sought doctors' sincere support to implement the 15-year Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) to make the country's healthcare system befitting to time while addressing the 13th convocation of Bangladesh College of Physicians and Surgeons (BCPS)

The International Day for Disaster Reduction was observed in the country as elsewhere across the world. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the day’s main program at the Osmani Auditorium as the chief guest

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the digital fair, Digital World 2016.

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EVENT OF THE YEAR

Classical Resonance

BCMF 2016

B

12

Bengal Foundation is going to present the fifth edition of the Bengal Classical Music Festival, commencing on November 24, 2016. Over the last four years, the festival has become globally recognised as the greatest of its kind in terms of quality and magnitude. The five-day long festival this year is dedicated to the memory of versatile author Syed Shamsul Haq (1935-2016).

Director General of Bengal Foundation, Luva Nahid Choudhury discussed the arrangements for the event and mentioned the names of the headlining performers. She also shed light on the Foundation's past and current endeavours based on the promotion of classical music.

In his speech, Abul Khair, Chairman of Bengal Foundation, remembered poet Syed Shamsul Haq, and Fahim Munaim, CEO of Maasranga TV. In their passing away, Bengal Foundation had lost two very dear friends.

Abul Khair explained that the Foundation worked for the promotion and nurture of almost all forms of the arts – visual art, music, theatre, writing, cinema and architecture. He stressed his belief that a culmination of these efforts could energise the arts scene, and

rekindle compassion and humane values.

Bengal Classical Music Festival is set to take place from November 24 through November 28, from 7 PM to 5 AM the next day, at the Army Stadium, Dhaka. As always, different genres of sub-continental classical music and dance will be presented to the public on those days.

For the last couple of years, the festival has firmly established itself as one of the leading global events of classical music in terms of the length and breadth of the program as well as the quality and quantity of attendees.

The festival has been graced by the participation of many established as well as emerging classical musicians and their foray into diverse horizons of the genre. The quality and sophistication of their presentation has sparked interest in classical music among our youth.

Every year, the festival has witnessed the number of attendees going up, reaching the height of 150,000 in the last edition. There is also a rise in the number of Bangladeshi performers.

Since 2012, more than 200 Bangladeshi artists have presented their performance side by side with global musical luminaries on this grand stage. In 2012, there were 10 Bangladeshi artists; in the succeeding years the number rose to 84. Finally, 165 performers are poised to shine at this year’s festival.

Square Group is presenting the Bengal Classical Music Festival as the title sponsor. BRAC Bank is supporting the event as the main sponsor. Maasranga TV is the broadcast partner, while ICE Business Times is the media partner.

Radisson Hotel Dhaka is the hospitality partner of the event, and Square Hospital is the medical partner. Blues Communications will handle the event management. The festival is being presented in association with Bengal Digital, Mango and Bengal Parampara Sangeetalay. Perfect Harmony of Singapore is the strategic partner.

To know more about online registration, along with the rules and regulations, please visit the newly launched website: www.bengalclassicalmusicfest.com

Things to look forward to this year The fifth Bengal Classical Music Festival will bring you a stellar selection of classical music and dance performances. The festival will feature the illustrious Vidushi Girija Devi. In her musical career of almost seventy years, this artist of the Banaras gharana has crafted her unique creative expression of khayal, thumri and tappa infused with the ‘Poorab’ flare. She has been decorated with the Padma Vibushan award in 2016, the highest accolade of the Indian government.

Ustad Allauddin Khan, the founder of the Senia Maihar gharana and a legendary figure in Indian raga music, was born in Shibpur, Brahmanbaria in Bangladesh. His son, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan is a globally acclaimed sarodist.

His son and Ustad Allauddin Khan’s grandson, Ustad Aashish Khan will be performing in Bangladesh for the first time ever at the festival. He has trained with his grandfather, father and aunt Annapurna Devi. He will be on stage on the first day of the festival, accompanied by the renowned tabla artist, Pandit Bickram Ghosh.

Collaborative presentations by new artists will certainly be a new attraction this year. Jasrangi is a novel form of jugalbandi, developed by Pandit Jasraj where a male and a female vocalist sing different ragas simultaneously.

Vidushi Ashwini Bhide of Jaipur-Atrauli gharana and Pandit Sanjeev Abhyankar of Mewati gharana will be performing Jasrangi at the festival.

Padma Bhushan Dr. L Subramaniam is a virtuoso violinist equally dexterous in both western classical and Carnatic styles. He has a nomination for the prestigious Grammy awards, and has performed with the crème de la crème of global composers and conductors. This year, Dr. Subramaniam is the final performer on the first night.

The illustrious Vidushi Madhavi Mudgal will take the stage with her disciple Arushi Mudgal and present Odissi dance.

Many of the phenomenal performers from previous years will be reappearing at this year’s festival, namely Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, Pandit Shivkumar Sharma and his son Rahul Sharma (of Wah Taj! fame), Pandit Ajoy Chakrabarty, Pandit Ulhas Kashalkar, Ustad Rashid Khan, Pandit Kushal Das, Pandit Tejendra Narayan Majumdar and Pandit Uday Bhawalkar.

We will also have the privilege of witnessing the performances of Padma Bhushan Dr. Prabha Atre, an illustrious vocalist of the Kirana gharana, Tabla-maestro Pandit Anindo Chatterjee of the Farukkabad gharana and his son Anubrata Chatterjee, as well as sitarist Pandit Sanjoy Bandopadhyay.

Pravin Godkhindi and Ratish Tagde will present a flute/violin duet while Pandit Yogesh Samsi and Pandit Subhankar Banerjee will present their duet on tabla.

Mandolin will be on the menu for the first time. A flute and mandolin duet will be brought to us by Grammy nominee Pandit Ronu Majumdar and U Rajesh, brother of eminent mandolin-artist, the late U Srinivas.

Purbayan Chatterjee will be mesmerising the audience with his sitar. We will also see Carnatic vocalists, sisters Ranjini and Gayatri, flautist Shashank Subramanyam, as well as vocalists Arati Ankalikar, Jayateerth Mevundi and Kumar Mardur.

The most seasoned performer at the festival is 87 year old vocalist Vidushi Girija Devi and the youngest is Ishrat Phuljhuri Khan at just seven years old.

Ishrat is a student of Bengal Parampara Sangeetalay and will play the Sarod in a group presenation. She is the granddaughter of renowned esraj artist Ustad Yaar Rasul Khan (aka Phulkhuri Khan).

This year, 165 musicians from Bangladesh will be participating in the festival, and they include Sharmila Banerjee’s troupe Nrityanandan, danseuse Munmun Ahmed and her troupe, and vocalist Mohammed Shoeb and his troupe. Notable vocalist Priyanka Gope will render a solo khayal and will be directing her students from Dhaka University in a group performance. Bengal Parampara Sangeetalay students will be participating in group performances of the sitar, sarod and tabla.

www.ibtbd.net

13

BANKING CORNER

Word of Mouth AB Bank Limited recently signed a collection agreement with Lanka Bangla Finance Ltd. under which all Master and Visa card holders of Lanka Bangla will be able to make their credit payments through all the Branches of AB Bank.

BRAC Bank Limited has launched a project to adopt Oracle ERP Solutions to support its ongoing business growth momentum. BRAC Bank formally signed an agreement with Oracle Corporation & KPMG Advisory Services Private Limited and kicked off the Oracle Migration Project.

A Cheque handover ceremony was held in DBL HO Conference Room on against Insurance claim of Tawfeer Mudaraba Deposit Pension Scheme of Late Mr. Md. Abul Kashem

Gazi Golam Murtoza, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Jamuna Bank Limited presided over the 295th Board Meeting of Jamuna Bank Limited.

The Board reviewed at length the overall operational aspects of the bank and took some pragmatic steps for their expansion and improvement

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Column

US ELECTION 2016

Verdict of the VOte

The longest presidential campaign has started in the oldest democracy in the world. Political campaigns in the United States of America last for months whereas they occur within 5 weeks in the United Kingdom, 10 days in Canada, and a mere 6 days in Australia.

Donald Trump, one of the major political party's presidential candidates has pledged to reform tax codes and to make trade policy easier to hire, invest, build grow produce and manufacture. On the other hand, he is very critical of NAFTA trade policy, which comprised of the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Donald Trump would also review all trade agreements of the United States with other countries. He is of the opinion that he would re-negotiate existing unfair trade agreements in particular.

He has been advocating imposing tariffs on imports to level playing field for American companies. If any company from the United States moves to Mexico, Donald Trump would levy a 35% tax while he proposed imposing 35% tax on goods from China; this would result in Chinese goods being more expensive

16

Ambassador Mohammad Amjad Hossain

in the US market. Donald Trump is also critical of Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade agreement (TPP) floated by President Barack Obama.

Trade ministers from twelve countries have signed formally Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement in Auckland, New Zealand on the 4, February 2016.

This agreement did not include Bangladesh. Donald Trump proposes to reform regulations towards economic growth, which will boost the growth of jobs and income as well.

Since the continuous series of attacks on Muslims by Trump, apart from revising trade agreements, no one could rule out affecting trade relations with Muslim countries, including Bangladesh. On the other hand, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who served as Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013, supported NAFTA and other trade agreements as the first lady. However, when she became the Senator, her record on free trade was mixed. In fact, Hillary Clinton voted against the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement but supported several bilateral trade agreements which included Singapore, Australia, and Oman. As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton praised TPP as "the gold standard in trade agreements", a disposition she changed during the primary debates. Basically, Hillary Clinton will retain trade regulations imposed by President Barack Obama.

She proposes to provide tax cuts to the middle class and small businesses, establish an infrastructure bank and fund more scientific research. Apart from investing in infrastructures to improve roads, bridges, public transports. She has proposed that the minimum wage is increased to $15 an hour; this would also include increased workers' benefits and

The United States of America turns out to be the biggest destination of Bangladesh products.

According to US census bureau, as of August 2016, Bangladesh exported a net worth of $ 4,136.4 million while importing a net worth of $ 558.2 million

encourage businesses to share profits with employees.

This being the scenario of the presidential campaign in the United States, all eyes are now focused on the results of the presidential election in November this year. Over the last few years, the United States of America has become important trade partners of Bangladesh with about a quarter of its products reaching the US market. Therefore, the eyes of the business community of Bangladesh are keenly focused on the events and the upcoming result of the presidential election.

Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) of the United States gives preferential duty-free entry of up to 4,800 products in order to promote economic growth in the developing countries of the world. The garment industry in Bangladesh has achieved tremendous success over a period of times. It has turned out to be the single highest contributor to the growth of the economy of Bangladesh. 80% of exports come from garment industry which employs four million jobs. President Barack Obama revoked the GSP in June 2013, following the collapse of Rana Plaza garment and the fire of the Tanzeen garment factory.

Bangladesh was also deprived of the GSP facility when United States renewed its GSP in 2015 for two years. If Hillary Clinton wins the presidential election in November, there is hardly any chance to restoring GSP facilities. She has had bitter experiences when labor leader Aminul Islam was found tortured and dead, apart from the mysterious disappearance of Ilyas Ali, an activist of opposition political party of Bangladesh. As the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton raised these issues with the Prime Minister during her visit to Bangladesh in May of 2012. She was particularly concerned about labor problems.

The United States of America turns out to be the biggest destination of Bangladesh products. According to US census bureau, as of August 2016, Bangladesh exported a net

ELECTION 2016 Over the last few years, the United States of America has become important trade partners of Bangladesh with about a quarter of its products reaching the US market.

Therefore, the eyes of the business community of Bangladesh are keenly focused on the events and the upcoming result of the presidential election.

The writer is a retired diplomat from Bangladesh. He writes from Virginia, USA

worth of $4,136.4 million while importing a net worth of $558.2 million; this translated to these transactions being favorable towards Bangladesh.

Having said that, owners of the garment industry in Bangladesh need to comply with international standard with respect to the protection of labor forces and ensuring safety network in the garment factories.

Wages of labor forces are incompatible with the market. Bangladesh also could not avail of the opportunity offered by the United States’ Millennium Challenge Act of 2003 that earmarked $2.3 billion because of the high rate of corruption in the country. If TPP is implemented in any form, Bangladesh would likely to face stiff competition with Vietnam in garment sector alone. Vietnam is one of the signatories of TPP whose apparel, footwear and textile will have a market in the United States on a large scale.

Therefore, the Bangladeshi government along with private sector should ensure human rights, rights of laborers, make payment to laborers that are commensurate with the market and create strict laws to prevent corruption in all sectors of the administration. www.ibtbd.net

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Clinton’s Campaign

“STRONGER TOGETHER.”

Hillary Clinton Campaign

party and joint fundraising committees

Super PACs

Consultants

$5.3 million

Homemakers

$6.9 million

Attorneys

$24.7 million

Google

$0.33 million

$0.01 million

Donald J Trump for President

Morgan & Morgan

$0.37 million

Self-Employed

$27.07 million

Boch Automotive Group

$0.09 million

Self-Employed

$1.09 million

Employers

Presidents

$0.22 million

CEOs

$0.23 million

Owners

$0.29 million

Opinions by Occupation

Super PACs

$17.5 million $141.3 million

party and joint fundraising committees

$219.2 million $239.9 million

Donald Trump Campaign

$166.3 million $413.7 million

Figuring out the Funds

$403.1 million $795 million

money raised as of August 31st

Creating Capital

Trump’s Campaign

“MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

WORDS OF WISDOM

The election season is in full-swing through the United States of America.

Along with the changing color of leaves, the office is set to experience what could be a historical moment with the possible prospect of a female president. ICE Business Times explores the candidates behind the elections.

BEHIND

Payroll

$51.1 million (22.4%)

Travel

$15.4 million (6.8%)

Advertising

$82.5 million (36.2%)

THE RACE

Jobs & US economy

71%

10 year dynamic revenue estimate

$10,135 billion

10-year static revenue estimate

$11,980 billion

Year Capital Investment Growth

29%

GDP Growth

11.5%

54%

Education

62%

48%

55%

Taxes

Minimum Wage

Healthcare

What matters most to the voters

10 year dynamic revenue estimate

$191 billion

10-year static revenue estimate

$498 billion

Year Capital Investment Growth

-2.8%

GDP Growth

-1.0%

Tracking Tariffs

$12minimum $10- wage minimum wage under Hillary under Trump

Forecasting the Future

77% 83%

Candidates have to carefully spend their funds in a balanced manner. This ensures that they do not invest until they have no capital towards the end or that they spend too little and go unnoticed.

Total Burn Rate

Burn Ultimatum

Promotional Items

$7.6 million (10%)

Travel

$8.4 million (11.1%)

Advertising

$20.2 million (26.5%)

Spot on Spending

VS

Data and Information for this article was provided Bloomberg Politics, The Washington Post, Similar Web, Lab 42, Knowledge@ Wharton.

Column

Setting a New BENCHMARK BILATERAL RELATIONS

The President of China Xi Jinping recently visited Bangladesh. Before the aura of his epoch-making visit could subside, the President of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, also made his first visit to Bangladesh in the third week of October 2016.

The two visits are being seen as feathers in Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's cap but the distinguished visitors and the leaders of the host country had certain goals in their minds. After initial scrutiny, many now believe that both the visits were highly productive.

As far as Mr. Xi’s visit was concerned, Bangladesh wanted to make a substantial headway, in at least two major areas - Chinese assistance for its development projects and bilateral relations with China. Favorable advances were made on both the issues.

Bangladesh and China signed as many as 27 agreements and memorandums of understanding (MoUs) during Mr. Xi’s visit. The Chinese assistance involved in those is estimated to be around $24 billion or more. The prospect of getting more funding for development projects does not end there. Funds from Beijing-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)

20

Shamsul Huq Zahid

might find their way into Bangladesh if China deems it necessary.

Bangladesh’s decision to rely more on Chinese assistance for development is not without any reason. The growth rate of the former has been quite impressive in recent years. So has been its performance in the case of poverty reduction. But what ails its development process most is its poor infrastructure. Multilateral lenders have been extending funds, but not up to the desired level and not for projects that the country needs most.

Bangladesh aspires to acquire the status of a middle-income country (MIC) by 2021 and to reach that milestone its economy has to grow at a higher pace, above 7% without any pause. Alongside making substantial improvements in its infrastructural condition, the country has to ensure uninterrupted supply of power and energy. Most part of the assistance that China has committed during Mr. Xi’s visit is meant for projects for power generation and infrastructure building.

China has been making available a substantial volume of resources to many countries in Africa, Southeast and South Asia for infrastructure and skill development in recent years. It could be that certain political as well strategic objectives have prompted China to be so generous in extending development assistance to so many countries. In 2014-15 China signed deals worth $46 billion with Pakistan, $20 billion with India and $1.4 billion with Sri Lanka.

Bangladesh wanted development assistance in large quantities from China and it has been successful in securing it.

China, in exchange, surely had some issues in its mind. It wanted Bangladesh to join a move called ‘strategic partnership’ for cooperation. ‘The One Belt, One Road Project’, masterminded by Chinese President Xi, is part of that move. Bangladesh has agreed to join the initiative.

Bangladesh and China signed as many as 27 agreements and memorandums of understanding (MoUs) during Mr. Xi’s visit. The Chinese assistance involved in those is estimated to be around $24 billion or more.

The developments surrounding Mr. Xi’s visit to Bangladesh had, naturally, evoked a few questions about their possible impact on Dhaka’s cozy relations with New Delhi. Some have seen Dhaka’s decision to become a strategic partner of China as a bid to strike a balance in its relations with two regional superpowers. However, events following the Chinese President’s visit do indicate that the BJP government’s stance towards Sheikh Hasina’s government has remained unchanged. The bilateral meeting held between Sheikh Hasina and Narendra Modi during the BRICS-BIMSTEC Outreach Summit in Goa, India had indicated that clearly.

The visit of Mr. Xi produced a win-win situation for both Bangladesh and China. Both of them are poised to reap long-term benefits out of it only if they stick to agreed path of taking the bilateral relations to a new height.

Mr. Xi’s visit was followed by the visit by another important dignitary - the incumbent President of the World Bank (WB), Jim Yong Kim. His visit was of high significance against the backdrop of perceived strained relationship between the Bank and the incumbent government over Padma Bridge project financing. Some people viewed Mr. Kim’s visit as a mission of mending the differences that had crept up in recent years.

Whether the differences were bridged or not is difficult to say, but the visit had ended on a positive note. During his visit, Mr. Kim had highlighted, at least, a couple of achievements of Bangladesh. He had all praise for Bangladesh for successfully cutting down poverty and making substantial progress in social sectors. The WB president personally had taken part in the End Poverty Day celebration in Dhaka as part of the Bank’s recognition of Bangladesh’s success in bringing down poverty level.

Mr. Kim did not leave Bangladesh just by dishing out only sweet words, doing nothing in material terms. In fact, Bangladesh has good reasons for being elated. The World Bank pledged to make available assistance worth $3 billion for two major projects - $2 billion for mitigation of climate-related adverse impacts and $1 billion for bankrolling programs for preventing malnutrition among children that lead to stunting. What has surely soothed the ears of the country’s policymakers is Mr. Kim’s promise to increase the Bank’s assistance to Bangladesh by another 50% during the next financial year.

The impression given by the WB president about Bangladesh would also create a positive impact in the minds of other lending institutions and investors, both local and foreign.

Mr. Kim’s visit would surely help remove

The World Bank pledged to make available assistance worth $3 billion for two major projects - $2 billion for mitigation of climate-related adverse impacts and $1 billion for bankrolling programs for preventing malnutrition among children that lead to stunting.

The writer is a senior journalist. He can be reached at zahidmar10@gmail.com

misgivings, if there is any, in relations between the government of Bangladesh and the Bank and deepen collaboration between the two in the future.

Bangladesh is now passing through a good time. Things do look very positive as of now. However, there should be no room for complacency on the part of the policymakers. They have much to do to ensure the continuation of goodwill that the neighbors, development partners, and relevant others are demonstrating. It has to strengthen national institutions, enhance the quality of governance, reduce the level of corruption, improve the business climate, invest in human resource development and upgrade the quality of public services, among others.

Mr. Kim was candid in expressing his feelings about the existence of such a large population in a small country. It was, in fact, a surprise for him that Bangladesh being such a densely populated country is marching forward overcoming all odds. If the people of Bangladesh could achieve so much against all odds, manmade or otherwise, they would surely achieve wonders in an improved environment. www.ibtbd.net

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IntervieW OF THE MONTH

“Bangladesh’s export to Korea has grown almost 3 times over the last 5 years; in particular, RMG exports have grown by almost 70% annually. ” H. E. Ahn Seong-doo

Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to Bangladesh

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H.E. Ahn Seong-doo is the Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to Bangladesh. Seong-doo was born 19th April, 1961 and had his B.A in International Relations from Seoul National University. He joined in MOFA in June 1985. He is married with two sons. Earlier, he served as the Ambassador to Afghanistan and consul-general to Dubai and worked in the Korean embassies in the Philippines, USA, France and Thailand.

Q What is your evaluation of the multidimensional Korea-Bangladesh relationship?

This year marks the 43rd anniversary of the diplomatic relations between Korea and Bangladesh since the establishment of our diplomatic ties in 1973. The last four decades have been a joyous journey through which Korea and Bangladesh have been cultivating a truly extraordinary and mutually beneficial relationship in every sector. The relations between the two countries are being expanded not only in quantity but also in quality in various areas.

Trade volume between the two countries has steadily increased and intensified as well. Our field of cooperation has been diversified into the ICT sector, infrastructural development, energy, environment, culture, human resources, and etc.

As a time-tested unique friend to Bangladesh, Korea was, is and will always be there to cooperate with and assist Bangladesh in reaching its goals. I look forward to witnessing the two countries working together and further deepening our existing relationship in the days to come.

What are your thoughts on the developmental challenges in Bangladesh where South Korea is making a significant contribution?

As the only country that transformed itself from a recipient of Official Development Aid to a significant donor, Korea, unlike other donor countries, well understands recipient countries’ perspectives. Bangladesh has very ambitious goals - by 2021 to become a middle-income country, by 2041 to become an advanced country. In order to fulfill these

The Korean government, through the KOICA project called “Technical Training Centre (TTC)” in Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi, and Sirajganj is supporting Bangladesh’s human resource development and capacity building. visions, Bangladesh needs to: 1) Diversify its industries 2) Ensure good governance 3) Establish adequate infrastructure.

Bangladesh is in need of skilled manpower.

The Korean government, through the KOICA project called “Technical Training Centre (TTC)” in Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi, and Sirajganj is supporting Bangladesh’s human resource development and capacity building.

Through this capacity enhancement, in the long term, Bangladesh will be able to make a transition and

diversify its industries, thereby easing its over-dependency on the RMG sector. Also, for the diversification, we have enhanced our cooperation in the ICT sector, which has superb potential in Bangladesh given its talented and young population.

Furthermore, Bangladesh needs to ensure good governance. Based on our experience, we understand the importance of good governance. With the Knowledge Sharing Program of the KDI (Korean Development Institute), we are now cooperating with Bangladesh to implement the National Integrity Strategy in the years to come.

It is needless to say that infrastructure and power endowments are the utmost importance in the economic development.

Thus, many Korean companies are participating in the development of these two sectors by transferring extensive technology and knowledge while working hand in hand with Bangladesh in the hope of making a shift in the transition. All in all, Korea reaffirms its commitment to continue efforts to expand its ODA and is fully committed to sharing constructive suggestions based on its past development experience during the course of the preparatory process.

What is the FTA status with Bangladesh?

In terms of trade, Korea has been offering www.ibtbd.net

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Duty-Free & Quota-Free schemes for Bangladesh since 2008; now almost all items, except some sensitive agricultural products, are covered by this scheme and Bangladesh’s export to Korea has grown almost 3 times over the last 5 years; in particular, RMG exports have grown by almost 70% annually. Bangladesh’s exports to Korea are growing fast, with Korea becoming one of the promising markets for many products including RMG. Regarding FTA, I know that Bangladesh would not want to sign an FTA with any country until 2025, before losing the facilities it enjoys as a least developed country.

An enormous amount of FDI is coming from Korea which includes Youngone Group’s industrial park. What are your thoughts in this regards?

Korean investment to Bangladesh has never been more intensified and diversified than ever before. Since 1973, trade volume between the two countries has increased by almost 500% and investment by about 100%.

Bangladesh has long been a land of hope and a window of opportunity for Korean entrepreneurs; we made a big contribution in Bangladesh’s brilliant success in RMG sector over the last decades. I hope our mutual-beneficial bilateral relationship would not be hindered by the KEPZ issue.

Considering that a big company like Samsung may come to Bangladesh if they find a suitable investment environment, the wise resolution of the pending KEPZ issue is imperative. It will not only generate employment opportunities and economic benefits but also provide a positive signal to many Korean companies and foreign investors. We have to create a win-win solution through future-oriented approaches. I think the most pressing issue in Bangladesh is to increase the level of FDI. Early settlement of the

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Since 1973, trade volume between the two countries has increased by almost 500% and investment by about 100%.

KEPZ issue will serve as a symbol of the Korea-Bangladesh friendship and will become the biggest success model of the partnership between our two countries. Also, it will be the best way for Bangladesh to attract FDI from many other countries.

What is your opinion regarding the business environment in Bangladesh?

Bangladesh is still a country of immense potential and enormous possibilities. I believe the greater number of investors will keep an eye on Bangladesh to explore its market and to be further convinced of its possibility in terms of

the size of its market, high-level of technology and other elements if more improvement efforts are made. With its remarkable economic growth rate, Bangladesh is on the right path to becoming a middle-income country.

While feeling proud of these amazing accomplishments and of its unlimited possibility, however, Bangladesh ranked 174th in the report “Doing Business 2016” by the World Bank. This shows that Bangladesh still needs to work hard on creating a better environment for businesses and prepare itself for future challenges.

Through good governance and wise policies to overcome the current obstacles, Bangladesh will be able to invite foreign investment to get the technology and push up competition which will definitely lead to the improvement of efficiency and productivity.

What is your evaluation of the hospitality and general mentality of the local people from your time here in Bangladesh?

Bangladesh is a country with energetic and resilient people, beautiful land and a dynamic culture. Even before I arrived here, I heard about Bangladeshi people’s hospitality.

Indeed, the loving friendship and warm hospitality that were always extended to me everywhere I go were beyond my expectation.

Thanks to peoples’ kindness, I truly feel at home in this country and cannot wait to make stronger bonds and fond memories with the people.

Interview

Banking for A Better Tomorrow WORLD BANK

Dr. Jim Yong Kim President World Bank Group

Photograph by Omar Faruk

What is your impression of Bangladesh from your first visit?

I was very impressed with the development that Bangladesh has made over time; attending the Ending Poverty Day was a truly honorable experience. I traveled to the Barisal district to witness how Bangladesh is tackling the challenge of climate change; this first-hand experience provided the best insight into how such matters were being taken care of. A memorable part of my time would have to be when I had seen a home with solar panels during my tour. This is an example of how Bangladesh is utilizing its resources in order to bring about a better and more environmentally friendly tomorrow. Furthermore, the nation is emphasizing women’s empowerment, and focusing on strengthening leadership both inside and outside the government.

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How is the World Bank and Bangladesh working together towards creating a better nation?

Bangladesh is the largest recipient from our International Development Association (IDA), which funds the poorest countries of the world. We intend to work with Bangladesh and support them in their endeavor to create a progressive nation. Our relationship has flourished over the years and the World Bank would like to state that we are with Bangladesh 100% of the way.

Additionally, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) is working to further develop the nation with an investment of $635 million last year. Our commitment of $2 billion in the next three years is to combat extreme poverty and climate change. The nation is extremely vulnerable to the detrimental effects of climate change. I believe that we must do everything that we can in order advance climate change adaptation and end poverty by 2030. Bangladesh has set a goal to become a middle-income nation and we must see to this. Foreign Direct Invest (FDI), strengthening institutional capacity and more invest in private sector infrastructure in the 7th Five Year Plan is imperative. The plan must also emphasize the capacity of a strong civil and judiciary service, public bank policies and zero tolerance for corruption.

Bangladesh is moving forward through four mega transitions through industrial, urban, demographic and technological shifts. What are the challenges for Bangladesh? How is World Bank offering their support?

During a time when globalization is a tool of progress, every country must understand their rankings with the other nations of the world.

Bangladesh needs to progress internally in order to retain a competitive edge against neighboring nations. The World Bank is the largest multilateral donor agency in the world with 189 members across the world. We want

The World Bank is the largest multilateral donor agency in the world with 189 members across the world. We want to use our network to bring international attention to the Bangladesh's potential. to use our network to bring international attention to the Bangladesh's potential. Through the country’s progress, other nations will be inspired for a better tomorrow. We will provide interest friendly loans to Bangladesh until they become a developed nation. The Prime Minister and I have previously discussed matters beyond climate change and poverty. We also want to focus on greater progress in women’s health, combating diarrhea and those diseases related to it, and defeating tuberculosis.

Given that you are providing extensive loans to Bangladesh, are there any conditions for these loans?

Every loan taken from the IFC is negotiated with the respective government or private sector that is taking the loan. We are very clear regarding the conditions and requirements that we impose on a loan. Our transparency is apparent in the thriving relationship with Bangladesh. The nation is very regulated with its payments to the Bank. In addition, the representative for Bangladesh in the World Bank is extremely efficient

* This interview is based on the press briefing during Dr. Jim Yong Kim’s visit to Bangladesh.

and professional. This allows us to properly arrive at a loan agreement that will suit both of our purposes.

You have visited the coastal regions of Bangladesh. As a development economist, could you elaborate on your first-hand experience?

During my visit to Barisal, I was thoroughly impressed while speaking with the female students of the city; they were all focused on becoming educated professionals before they plan to get married.

Moreover, they are creating a cyclone shelter that will be able to house the people and animals. This will function as a shelter during times of disaster and a school during less turbulent times.

Considerations towards building provision against such disaster are commendable and should be seen as a source of inspiration.

You have discontinued financing the Padma Bridge due to allegations of corruption. Would you continue this disposition or focus your resources elsewhere?

In next five years, the World Bank will concentrate on human development, expanding renewable energy, inland water transportation, logistic support, regional and international integration and within the region especially India, Bangladesh, and Nepal. In addition, supporting urbanization for next development phase will witness lead to the greater demand for higher quality living standards.

Private sector investors believe that it is conducive to greater investment in order to increase the involvement of the IFC. From our part, we would like to bring technical assistance of power improvement, and expert experience from Europe. In regards to corruption, we have a zero tolerance policy. This is why we promote and embody the ideas of transparency and the Prime Minister has fully cooperated with us on every effort. She is continually working to eradicate corruption from the system. www.ibtbd.net

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Connectivity

BANGLADESH-INDIA BILATERAL TRADE

Towards a Better Tomorrow B

The writer is a Professor at the University of Dhaka. This article is based on his keynote address presented at a Workshop organized by The Daily Asian Age.

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By Atiur Rahman

angladesh and India share the same rivers, the same eco-systems, and the same culture and heritage. They have also shared a political and economic history for centuries. The paths of economic growth for Bangladesh and India, therefore, must converge in order to make the Indian sub-continent the future hub of economic activities of the world. This is indeed an Asian century and if we can play our cards with prudence and intelligence this sub-region is destined to be the center-piece of exciting sustainable development.

Economic integration is a process of living together towards a common goal. Our common goal should be Sustainable Economic Growth.

After 45 years of our cooperation, though at varied speed, it is high time for both the countries to develop a common strategy for accelerating this in the economic front. Without setting up a common strategy, we probably will compromise the well-being of our future generations. This is not just a concept; it is a reality. I believe it is for this we must stay together and build a common platform.

POTENTIAL FOR SUB-REGIONAL COOPERATION BETWEEN TWO COUNTRIES

Bangladesh is now a fertile base for massive volumes of new investments in the areas of manufacturing, infrastructure, education and technology which are growing in a synchronized manner. India, our closest large neighbor, is partnering with us in promoting trade and investment linkages, with much needed investments in railway and other communication related infrastructures. In addition, both countries have opted for inclusion of other neighbors like Nepal and Bhutan in expanding cooperation in further development of railway lines and hydro-electricity plants. In the background of rapidly growing demands for electricity, particularly significant complementarities are those demands and potential for availability of large but unevenly distributed primary energy resources for generation of electricity across countries and seasons (e.g. abundance of hydro-electric resources in Bhutan and Nepal). There are certainly many opportunities of taking further steps toward greater electricity sector interconnectedness and power trade among South Asian neighboring countries to address the challenges of low and interrupted supply of electricity and underutilization of available resources. Cooperation in trade and investment will further expand and deepen following development of new Special Economic Zones (SEZs) where India is also participating. Here lies the strategic importance of Indo-Bangladesh economic engagements which will lead to win-win outcome for people of both countries.

Let us now focus on some other possible areas which can help improve the burgeoning Bangladesh-India economic relationship: l Indian authorities can encourage their businesses to

After 45 years of our cooperation, though at varied speed, it is high time for both the countries to develop a common strategy for accelerating this in the economic front. utilize Bangladesh as low cost manufacturing base to produce goods for the local, Indian, and external markets, taking into account favored market access for exports from Bangladesh. For that to happen Bangladesh needs energy to accelerate investment in manufacturing. Given the opportunities for cooperation of sharing electricity from the region through desired interconnectedness of grid and enhancing trade the region could generate, on average cost savings of approximately $9 billion per annum relative to the status quo. A recent World Bank estimate shows that Bangladesh, with regional electricity cooperation and trade, could satisfy as high as 40% of total consumption of imported energy during 2015-40. l Deepening and widening of trade and economic cooperation in our region requires major simplification and facilitation of customs clearance procedures in overland goods flows in the trade value chains, allowing cross-border movement of cargo laden vehicles.

Experts from both ends have identified this to be a major challenge. l Bangladesh’s seaports, land ports and rail/road arteries need major expansion and modernization for handling increasing cargo volumes of regional transit trade traffic.

Here, Indian investors, both public and private will be most welcome. l The potential for bilateral trade between India and Bangladesh via water routes largely remains

untapped due to poor navigability of the rivers, port handling problems, and cumbersome customs procedures. A new era has begun when Indo-Bangladesh Protocol on Inland Water Transit and Trade was signed last year by the Prime Ministers of the two nations last year. Experts have opined that shifting to water transport from road option can cut costs of transporting by $3 per metric ton. l India’s vibrant IT sector, healthcare, education, training and other service sectors are much welcome to take advantage of Bangladesh’s large pool of relatively low-cost youthful tech savvy manpower to set up product research/design/development, world class tertiary education, training and healthcare facilities in Bangladesh, on joint venture or wholly foreign owned basis. l Deputing renowned Indian scholars in the faculty of Bangladesh’s newly established Rabindra Biswabidyala, and in our technical universities will go a long way in reinforcing cultural bonds and in R&D cooperation between the two neighbors. l Like most other countries of the world, both India and Bangladesh, are aiming to go more for green energy or renewable energy sources. India is one of the pioneers in this sector. India’s cumulative grid interactive or grid tied renewable energy capacity (excluding large hydro projects) has already surpassed 42,000 megawatts.

The Indian government is aiming for 40% cumulative electric power capacity from renewable sources by 2030. Bangladesh as a country also has ambitious renewable energy targets: it aims to meet at least 10% of its projected electricity demand of 24,000 megawatts in 2021 by renewable energy sources. Government and non-government bodies are working relentlessly to achieve this and has achieved commendable success so far. In particular, Bangladesh’s emphasis on developing Solar Home System (already crossing four million plus) and micro-solar www.ibtbd.net

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grid for the use of rural remote growth centers and the community at large has been lauded by the green observers from all around the world.

Furthermore, Bangladesh’s record of adopting strategies against climate change has been acknowledged by the relevant global community. The proactive central bank of Bangladesh has also been pushing green financing and motivating financial institutions to align their financial products for sustainable development. Both countries can learn from each other’s successes in the field of generating renewable energy to meet the aspiration of SDGs. l It is obvious that Bangladesh could benefit to a great extent through technical support from India as well as learn from the Indian renewable energy experience; the same is true for India in learning from Bangladesh’s grassroots initiatives on this.

The scope of cooperation in the power sector is not limited to renewable energy only.

Bangladesh is already importing electricity from India which has been helping Bangladesh’s development significantly. An Indian company is setting up a coal based power plant which will be playing a vital role in meeting the energy demands of the south western part of Bangladesh, provided we can make sure of taking necessary environmental safeguards. On the other hand, there are other two BBIN countries, Bhutan and Nepal, who have the potential of producing excess electricity. India can surely facilitate channeling that excess electricity from Bhutan and Nepal to the northern parts of Bangladesh. Cooperation between the private sectors of the countries need to be encouraged in this regard. l Agricultural value-chain development is another area where cooperation between the two economies can yield great results which may be equally beneficial to both ends. Pran group from Bangladesh has more than tripled its processed food

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Cooperation in trade and investment will further expand and deepen following development of new Special Economic Zones (SEZs) where India is also participating. Here lies the strategic importance of Indo-Bangladesh economic engagements which will lead to win-win outcome for people of both countries. exports to India in between FY 2010-11 and FY 2014-15 (from $15.5 million to $49.15 million).

Bangladeshi companies are claiming they could expand their businesses further in Indian market if they are allowed to invest and build factories there. Similarly, Godrej group of India in collaboration with ACI group of Bangladesh initiated a joint venture in 2004 and since then, they have been providing quality poultry, fish, cattle and shrimp feed for Bangladesh market.

This joint venture has benefited Bangladesh agriculture not only by providing quality agro-inputs but also educating the farming community on world-class farming practices. Many other similar win-win invest initiatives are indeed desirable for this cooperation journey. l Indian tour operators including travel spots of Bangladesh in itineraries of inbound tourists will likewise be mutually beneficial. I am very heartened by the news of India deciding to facilitate visa procedure for visitors from Bangladesh, including offering

special facilities for the senior citizens to obtain visa with ease. l Indian investments in development of sea port/land port and transport arteries in Bangladesh will greatly facilitate export and intra-regional trade flows. In addition, the potential for development of a blue economy, following settlement of maritime coastline dispute, has increased significantly. Both countries can now invest in joint exploitation of oceanic resources by sharing their technical expertise and develop processing and other industries for meeting both local and international demand. l Bangladesh and India are already cooperating in strengthening AML/CFT surveillance in our region. We are also working together in meeting the challenges of thwarting terrorist financing. This will help promote a regional environment that both regional and external investors will feel more secure and safe in.

CONCLUSION

The potential for cooperation for faster and sustainable economic growth between India and Bangladesh is indeed unlimited.

With its common heritage and proven history of sharing blood during the critical time of Bangladesh’s war of liberation in 1971, there is a built-in imperative for further deepening of cooperation for mutual economic gains. Both countries are now politically poised to develop the infrastructures for the desired level of economic cooperation. Now that the mind-set of the policy makers of both the countries has changed for greater cooperation, the challenge is how to design feasible projects and programs for mutual economic gains. There are enough areas of such cooperation if we are really serious in learning from each other’s success stories, as well as occasional failures. Let’s think about the road ahead which is long, bumpy and steep. Together we can certainly move ahead with caution and humility.

Interview

CHITTAGONG CHAMBER

Mahbubul Alam

President Chittagong Chamber of Commerce and Industry Born on the 1st February, 1958, Mahbubul Alam, CIP (Commercially Important Person) is the son of Late Alhaz Nurul Alamand and late Anowara Begum. Currently he is the President of Chittagong Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI), the largest business chamber in our country. He hails from Raozan and holds a Masters in Sociology.

Alam is the chairman of Crown Steel Limited and has diversified his business interests into banks, insurance companies and healthcare institutions.

Soft spoken but very dynamic in nature, Alam is also the Vice President of FBCCI (The Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce& Industry) and Vice-Chairman of Confederation of Eastern Chambers of Commerce &Industries (CECCI), a body comprising of provincial Chambers of India, Bhutan, Myanmar & Kunming of China. He is also a member of the Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority (BEZA).

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OF CONNECTIVITY & DEVELOPMENT

Q As you are the Vice-President of SAARC Chamber, how do you evaluate our connectivity issues?

As neighboring nations, Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Bhutan have united to work and implement ambitious multi-modal systems such as road, rail, waterways and airways, joint power projects and telecommunication networks. Linking these four countries through efficient roadways will open up the entire region to turn it into a significant channel of trade to gain economic prosperity. It is very important that the connectivity between Bangladesh and India be developed as a pre-condition to regional connectivity. This action will advance the required infrastructure through enhancing multimodal transport to subsequently facilitate the BBIN economic coalition with a greater dimension. These two nations have encountered difficult phases at times but we currently have a mutual relationship with India.

With the consideration of this improved situation, there is a need to restore our pre-partition communication network and further improve it to build up a solid economy in the region. The need for a common transport policy for the entire region is necessary; furthermore, there is a necessity to understand that perception of connectivity varied between India and Bangladesh.

We are aware that this regional entity has some unique attributes.

These attributes could potentially ensure significant benefits to the participating countries through deepening of economic cooperation and integration by liberalizing their respective connectivity like transport, trade, and investment to

As neighboring nations, Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Bhutan have united to work and implement ambitious multi-modal systems such as road, rail, waterways and airways, joint power projects and telecommunication networks. march forward and eventually match with global economic aspirations.

What are the possibilities we can look forward to regarding the China plus one issue?

The pattern of investment in China is undergoing a change; this is primarily because of the hike in wage structure - approximately 25% a year in major industry sectors.

Additionally, China is currently experiencing some concerning inflationary trends, the effects of which are pushing up the prices of everything from a bowl of rice to apartment rentals.

Finally, China has unified its corporate income tax system last year, bringing the previous low rates that foreign businesses enjoyed in some cases from 15 to 25%.

This is why it has become a matter of concern for the foreign investors to consider finding another country which can supplement their investment decisions. ‘China Plus One’ is an international business strategy that consists of the expansion of one company's current operations in China to a Southeast Asian nation.

Many interested countries are now looking for a nation that has low wage rates, strong infrastructure and a suitable atmosphere for business. However, the primary concern and question is – why has Bangladesh been unable to take hold of the opportunity given that the nation has the advantage of low wages and abundant manpower?

Understandably, the problems for Bangladesh include its deficient infrastructure, unskilled manpower, political instability and last but not the least, volatile capital market. The problems are daunting and must be solved quickly and efficiently. But in the absence of corrective measures, the situation will further worsen in the days to come. Given the opportunity, it is in the interest of the nation that the policymakers should chalk out a roadmap so that some visible improvements are in place before it is too late.

Strategically Bangladesh is between two superpowers; what are the pitfalls and opportunities from that situation? What are your thoughts on the future of the port city?

Chittagong is the commercial capital of Bangladesh blessed with a principal maritime port through which www.ibtbd.net

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more than 92% of our total seaborne cargo is handled. The port can serve the trade necessities of the landlocked northeastern states of India, Nepal, Bhutan and a vast region of Myanmar with respect to their export and import activities. Moreover, it has a unique geographic location at the bridgehead point of the world’s two most vibrant economic blocks SAARC and ASEAN. Another remarkable feature of the location is that it can effectively serve the market of 2.3 billion people of this vast region, creating lower costs for necessary transactions. The proposed Trans-Asian Railway and Asian Highway would also link this commercially important city with China, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam as well. Presently, the four neighboring countries - Bangladesh, India, China and Myanmar - are united to improve transportation like road, rail, waterways and airways, joint power projects and telecommunication networks which will advance the BCIM economic corridor. Therefore, Chittagong has all the potential and prospects as a transnational hub for South and Southeast Asia at the same time. Unfortunately, we are far from utilizing these potentials. Bay Terminal, Karnaphuli Tunnel, 3 Economic Zones, Ring Road, LNG terminal and many such sky high projects are presently being worked on. There must be notable progress under a national consensus as the accomplishment of such mega projects can make Bangladesh one of the leading economies of the world within next 30 years.

You are involved with the Kunming Chamber as well. From that perspective, could you elaborate upon how connectivity lead to a new dimension in our economic development?

Bangladesh, China, India, and Myanmar have made remarkable progress in establishing economic corridors with a view to enhancing regional cooperation for gaining economic footholds. Recent meetings

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(vi) Exchange of technology Comprehensive market access to the larger economies such as India and China could open up opportunities for diversifying and expanding the export capacity of the less developed economies of the regional grouping such as Myanmar and Bangladesh.

Market access to India would encourage domestic, Indian, Chinese and other country’s Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in such potentially lucrative activities such as agro-processing, readymade garments, textile, cement, fertilizer, metal products in Bangladesh targeting the neighboring markets.

What are your hopes and vision for the future of Bangladesh?

provided us with the opportunity to exchange views and determine the future course of action in making the vision come true. I would like to express my gratitude to Yunnan Provincial Federation of Industry & Commerce for organizing Meetings on Cooperation Federation of Chambers along BCIM. The advantages that materialize from such regional forums are: i) Easy market access ii) Widened scope for realizing complementarities among countries of the group iii) Better utilization of land, labor force, and available natural resources iv) Economic development within and outside the forum (v) Development of solid strategic alliances

Bangladesh has now been regarded as a growing economy of the world which has advanced in many development indices and has become a model for many other countries of the World.

Bangladesh is an emerging economy bridging between two vibrant economic regions, SAARC and ASEAN. There is no doubt about the potentials of our country as we have a huge competitive labor force, a very strong private sector leading the economy, positive export scenario and highly appreciable GDP growth. All of these elements are ready at hand to draw the picture of a scenic future. Now it is up to the Government, political leadership, policymakers and business leaders on leading the path to creating the best possible use of these potentials to make Bangladesh a middle-income country by 2021. This is the high time progress towards the vision collectively in order to attain national aims and objectives.

Connectivity POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Towards a Cooperative South Asia Sadiq Ahmed

Vice Chairman, Policy Research Institute of Bangladesh

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What is your evaluation of the BBIN initiative?

Globally, South Asia is one of the least integrated regions. Research shows that more and better regional cooperation can unlock the Region’s substantial growth potential and help reduce poverty at a faster pace. A range of initiatives has been taken to boost regional cooperation.

Unfortunately, turbulent history, long-standing unresolved conflicts, political distrust and suspicious attitude all combine to halt sustained and lasting progress with regional cooperation.

An initiative that has shown better prospects for sustained progress is the Bangladesh-Bhutan-India-Nepal (BBIN) cooperation. This is a sub-regional agreement to pursue cooperation in areas relating to trade, power, transport, and water. The reason why this is more promising than the broader South Asia cooperation framework, known as South Asian Agreement for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), is because the political baggage that SAARC carries is much less binding for BBIN. Countries located in the eastern part of the South Asian Region share a common border, substantial cultural background and are relatively less conflict prone than SAARC, where the India-Pakistan conflict shadows and offsets all positive developments. Notably, the two lead countries of BBIN, Bangladesh, and India, have made considerable efforts to resolve their political differences and have now established excellent political and diplomatic relationship. Significant progress has also been made on a number of bilateral economic cooperation front including trade, power, and transport. This positive experience gives a solid platform for pushing ahead with the BBIN initiative.

Could you elaborate upon the new programs of the BBIN program?

There is a new BBIN program involving all 4 countries with the purpose of improving transit connectivity. The BBIN motor vehicle agreement (MVA) was signed on June 15, 2015. It enables vehicles to enter any of the four countries without the need for trans-shipment of goods from one country's truck to another's at the border. Under the agreement, cargo vehicles will be tracked electronically, permits will be issued online, and sent electronically to all land ports. Vehicles will be fitted with an electronic seal that alerts regulators every time the container door is opened. The DHL Global Forwarding was appointed by the Indian government to carry out a pilot run under the agreement. The first cargo truck under the new MVA started from Kolkata on the 1st of November 2015. The truck traveled 640 km, instead of 1,550 km as they had previously driven, to reach Agartala via Dhaka. This as a very good example of the time and cost savings that the MVA under the BBIN would bring.

What are the bottlenecks in this regard? How can we overcome them?

The long-term sustainability of BBIN is a major challenge. For successful cooperation agreements, the political connectivity of the agreeing countries is essential, and the ability to demonstrate visible benefits for all participating nations is also critical. The presence of a large country, such as India, will always create a perception of dominance and unequal partnership. Even the well-meaning MVA is looked at suspiciously in some quarters in Bangladesh as catering to India’s needs rather than benefitting Bangladesh. To address these concerns forcefully and objectively, the BBIN cooperation must be broad-based on a multi-front that have clear and demonstrable benefits for all parties. Progress with energy trade

An initiative that has shown better prospects for sustained progress is the BangladeshBhutan-India-Nepal (BBIN) cooperation.

This is a sub-regional agreement to pursue cooperation in areas relating to trade, power, transport, and water. and water cooperation will be seen as significant achievements for the smaller countries. Similarly, the removal of all trade barriers including non-trade barriers by India will have a hugely positive impact on exports from the three neighbors and demonstrate India’s goodwill and serious interest in promoting development in the smaller countries. Another positive action will be to simplify visa regulations for Bangladesh by extending it visa on arrival facility as given to a large number of countries. In the case of transit, it is important that India is willing to pay for full cost recovery of infrastructure used by India from neighbors. This is already a thorny issue in Bangladesh and must be swiftly addressed to ensure the full and proper implementation of the MVA. Learning from a history of cooperation, the only sustainable way of keeping cooperation agreements intact is the ability to

carry the citizens forward with cooperation. Personal relations between the heads of governments and associated political parties are major enablers. They are necessary but not sufficient.

What are the major business trends that you have observed recently? What are our prospects in this regard?

Given the fragility of the present cooperation practices, the BBIN needs to move pragmatically and in a sensitive manner to avoid any misperceptions. The initial focus should be on win-win low hanging fruits. My research shows that the easy gains relate to trade flows, trade logistics, energy trade and transport connectivity; a subject matter that I have extensively researched and published books about. Water cooperation is trickier although essential, but it needs a longer planning horizon.

The easiest and fastest way to show gains from cooperation is through much stronger trade cooperation and trade integration. Trade between countries of South Asia is very limited. For BBIN countries, the record is better. Even so, India dominates trade and it looks like a one-way street to ordinary citizens that often creates the wrong perception that India regards the BBIN partners as its markets. This is indeed not correct because a large part of the reason that exports from BBIN partners to India are so small compared to their imports from India is their domestic supply constraints; these matters must be addressed speedily and with determination. Simultaneously, India also has to act swiftly to dismantle all its non-trade barriers that hurt export efforts from BBIN partners. India should be lauded for granting BBIN partners duty-free entry. This is necessary but not sufficient to facilitate entry into Indian markets. A careful review of all the non-tariff barriers should be undertaken immediately and removed to facilitate exports from India’s BBIN partners.

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How can trade among the region be improved? Are there any initiatives or programs that are currently working to alleviate these problems?

Trade will also grow with better trade facilitation practices, especially at the land ports that require substantial upgrading and automation. The World Bank and the ADB are both keen to support this initiative. BBIN could develop these regional projects to improve trade flows.

Nepal and Bhutan have tremendous hydro-power projects. If these projects are fully exploited, BBIN energy shortages can be addressed in a way that also helps the climate change agenda by substituting fossil-fuel energy with clean hydro-power. India has already set some good examples for supporting the hydro-power development of Bhutan. India’s positive role in promoting power trade with Bangladesh is another positive development. It can now scale up this effort to include Nepal in hydro-power development, and then help Bangladesh benefit through proper power trade agreements that include participation by Bhutan and Nepal. In all these endeavors the transactions should be done on a commercial basis involving the private sector and proper pricing and return to investment policies so that there is no perception of arm-twisting and political deal-making in favor of India. Since India has the financial resources, technical know, and institutional capabilities, their leadership role is important. However, the efforts must involve all the other three countries as equal partners in setting up the business proposals and underlying partnership agreements.

Building on progress with these programs, the next round could focus on building the transport infrastructure and water cooperation agreements. All initiatives, especially relating to water, must be seen as mutually beneficial and not as zero sum game. In the case of water,

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Bangladesh can play a particularly important role to facilitate the cooperation agenda by serving as the bridge between the giant neighbor India and the small nations of Nepal and Bhutan.

international experience suggests that adopting a River Basin approach with multiple benefits have the best prospects for success.

It is imperative that we improve our infrastructural condition if we are to improve our connectivity with our neighboring countries. What are your thoughts regarding this matter?

Infrastructural conditions are a challenge for BBIN countries, although India is more advanced than the other three countries. The transport infrastructure requires huge investments to serve both the needs of individual countries and to facilitate transit trade and connectivity requirements.

Development of infrastructure will help improve trade competitiveness and boost BBIN exports. This is a huge challenge given resource and technical capabilities constraints.

This requires a combination of BBIN cooperation and resort to

international cooperation.

Countries like China, Japan and Korea have huge resources and exceptional construction capacities.

BBIN could effectively leverage these resources to develop the infrastructure; support can also be sought from the World Bank and the ADB. A vision, a roadmap, and agreement are necessary to remove all political and border-level hurdles. Project contracts must be based on competition and best offer from suppliers who meet quality standards. Cooperation must not imply insider deals and inefficient investments.

What opportunities are we missing out on due to the bottlenecks that we have yet to remove?

The main problem is the very slow progress with implementation of agreements. As a result, we are missing out on important progress with trade growth, expansion of power supply and development of infrastructure. Time is of the essence. The political climate for BBIN cooperation is excellent and countries must seize on this opportunity. Bangladesh can play a particularly important role to facilitate the cooperation agenda by serving as the bridge between the giant neighbor India and the small nations of Nepal and Bhutan. It can also play the gate-keeper role by pushing the dialogue and overseeing transactions to assure the smaller neighbors that their interest is being protected. The main bottleneck is the difficult and often very slow bureaucracy. Special skills might be needed to facilitate transactions. This can be done by involving private sector professionals and business representatives in all negotiations.

The agreements must be fully disclosed to the public to maintain full transparency. Ideas and feedback on proposals should be elicited from national think tanks to develop good projects and to ensure that the selected projects meet sound economic and financial criteria.

Connectivity

Tracking a Regional Network

R E G I O N A L RA I LWAY

Saroj Ayush Consultant UNESCAP

Q

In the context of South Asia, what are the bottlenecks in the railway sector?

One of the biggest identified bottlenecks is the missing links and numerous border crossing matters in the Tran Asian Rail (TAR) Network. According to a 1998 study by UNESCAP, the cost of plugging the missing links was approximated at $4,561 million. The southern corridor of the TAR Network has been identified to commence from Kunming, China to Kapikule, Turkey. It was to run through Xiaguan, Ruili (Myanmar), Lashio (Myanmar),

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Saroj Ayush (fourth from the right) among the speakers of the Reimagining South Asia 2030.

Mandalay, to India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey, providing a connection between Europe and Eastern Asia via South Asia. The volume that was required to be moved did not justify the investment of the entire corridor.

However, in recent times with the increase in trade, the operationalization of the South and South West Asia portion of the corridor passing through Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Iran and Turkey seems to be technically feasible. This corridor termed as the ITI-DKD corridor of the TAR at current levels needs infrastructure financing only to the extent of upgrading the track. There are no missing links with only one change of track gauge at Zahedan (Iran). However, the absence of a Regional Railway Agreement to operationalize the route has not been agreed upon by the concerned governments and that seems to be the biggest bottleneck at present.

Could you cite a successful model of regional connectivity through railway? What can Bangladesh learn from this model?

There are many regional cooperation blocks in Asia and the World which can be cited for successful implementation of regional connectivity through Railway. The entirety of Europe is integrated by railway connections. Another example that is closer to our region is the northern corridor of TAR and the Central corridor of TAR which is operational. The latest railway cooperation agreement comes from the ECO (Transit Transport Framework Agreement) TTFA which facilitates the running of trains from Istanbul to Islamabad.

The biggest advantage of the availability of successful models across the world is learning from their experimentation. The worldwide cooperation has made economic and operational models available.

Furthermore, transit agreements and transport and trade facilitation tools are being available off the shelf.

This makes the process of implementation easy and does not necessitate the participating country to go through the long process of negotiation of the operational and commercial terms.

Bangladesh can certainly benefit from the tools available to various multilateral agencies like UNESCAP, World Bank, ADB, etc.

You emphasize the necessity to create a systematic method for the monetary demands of transporting goods via the railway (per accordance to the country or the distance). How would this help improve railway connectivity in the SAARC region?

Railways in this region are essentially a government run enterprise with very little privatization. This in no way undermines the fact that they

essentially remain a profit oriented business entity.

This facilitates their competition with other available options but at the same time, they should know how to remain economically viable. One of the many reservations which the countries have been putting up, in this case, is the benefits being available to the country by allowing transit through their territory. It is perceived that this comes at the cost of diverting funds from the infrastructure of national importance to strengthening regional connections over railways. To deal with this it is essential that the transit trade over railways is self-sustaining. A unified and agreed method of the pricing of the product and apportioning of the revenue has to be in place to make the endeavor successful.

The two main concerns to be addressed over here is the transit revenue to be earned by the concerned country and the pricing of the product which should be competitive with the other route and mode choices available with the shipper.

In the context of SAARC, the land route becomes very important as it serves a huge hinterland. The railways in this region have an advantage of crossing through the ICD locations of the hinterland hence offering transit time and cost advantage to inter ICD movements.

One of the many problems in our region is the lack of human resource and infrastructure. How can such challenges be tackled?

SAARC country demographics currently favor human resources; it www.ibtbd.net

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houses the youngest population and workforce in comparison with other countries. However, training and skill development remain a challenge. The governments of these countries have realized the potential of their youth population and many steps have been taken for tackling the skill development of these workforces. This will yield positive results in the future.

Infrastructure development has also been given due importance in the last two decades and this region has witnessed growth in that sector. Infrastructure financing has been an issue for which various options can be considered like Private Public Partnerships, Financing from Regional and International banks like ADB and WB, lines of credit and soft loans from developed countries.

What is the potential of regional connectivity through rail lines?

The potential of any transport corridor is measured in the volumes it carries at present which is the existing demand; the total demand for connectivity would come from the generated demand or potential demand and diverted demand which is the cargo that gets diverted to it from other modes. As this route is currently not operational, it would be difficult to ascertain the kind of volumes of cargo that would move over it. The containerized volumes handled by the ports of this region have seen a steady increase over the last decade. The congestions experienced at the ports are also indicative of the fact that there is ample scope for developing alternate modes of transport. Finally, how much trade would be carried over the route would depend on the route choice parameters offered by the countries concerned in terms of reliability, transit times, security, transit costs and ease of transportation etc.

A UNESCAP study has indicated that 65% of trade potential of the SAARC region has not been realized due to the absence of transport connectivity in the region.

The ECNEC has recently approved the Bangladesh Railway megaproject. How would this improve regional connectivity within the nation and with neighboring nations?

Bangladesh Railways needs to upgrade its track structure and rolling stock

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The congestions experienced at the ports are also indicative of the fact that there is ample scope for developing alternate modes of transport. availability. It is undertaking measures to convert the meter gauge tracks to gauntlet tracks or dual gauge tracks. It has invested majorly in upgrading the rolling stock. This would lead to an easing of the interoperability of the rolling stock with India.

Currently, the volume of freight traffic moving over Bangladesh Railway is very low. With its integration with the regional traffic, it is expected that a lot of Indian Cargo bound for the North Eastern States of India would move via Bangladesh Railway. It would also open the utilization of Chittagong port for international trade of the northeastern States. Nepal and Bhutan may also get access to Bangladesh ports in Mongla, Ashuganj, and Chittagong.

This would substantially increase the freight traffic being moved over Bangladesh Railway.

What are the matters that affect railway connectivity between trans-border nations? What security advancement is necessary for efficient utilization of this system?

If we talk specifically about SAARC nations and railway movements, we observe that

there are existing bilateral arrangements in between these countries under which rail movements are taking place at present. There is a need to have a Regional Railway Agreement to be put in place in the region to facilitate transit cargo.

There are many concerns of the member countries which would need to be addressed to actually make the run possible. This would cover the interoperability issues of rolling stock management, crew and staff management, operational issues, transit and transport facilitation issues such as customs, sharing of data, standardization of documents, sharing of revenue, or single consignment note to name a few. However, to reiterate my point, there are many models of regional connectivity running successfully in the world which can be picked off the shelf and implemented to make the regional connectivity of SAARC region successful.

The need of the hour is for the countries to adopt an acceptable master plan which would entail a Truck Corridor – Feeder Network model for maximizing network externalities.

Localized multimodal sub-regional options may be evaluated and operationalized to minimize initial complexities of reforms. A container train that runs from Dhaka to Delhi on the agreed Trans-Asian Rail Network can be operationalized to observe the impact on the network. This may further be extended up to Islamabad and integrated to the currently running Istanbul-Tehran-Islamabad train.

Development Sector

Recognizing the Broader Goal CHAR PEOPLE

In the chars of Bangladesh, people are deprived of bare necessities such as electricity, transportation network as well as communication. Since the standards of living in these areas are unstable, the dwellers would often suffer from financial crisis and health problems. Due to the geographical location being inconvenient and unpredictable, NGOs and the government were unable to provide support to these lands. To mitigate the condition, Runa Khan stepped into the NGO sector to provide healthcare and other much needed facilities for the people living in remote areas in Bangladesh. Thus, Friendship was founded in 2002 and the organization became the saving grace for those dwelling in the poverty-stricken chars till date.

Runa Khan is the Founder and Executive Director of Friendship, an NGO supporting remote communities in Bangladesh. After working for four years, she also founded Friendship International in Luxembourg in 2006. Friendship now touches 4.2 million lives a year using their integrated six sectoral approach in the Health, Education, Sustainable Economic Development, Disaster Management and Infrastructure Development, Good Governance and Cultural Preservation. Friendship International now operates from five European countries, fundraising and building relationships for Friendship in Bangladesh.

Ever since its inception, the organization has been branching out to different aspects of development to curb issues pertaining to economy, health, hygiene and education in these isolated lands. As an entrepreneur who thoroughly invests in development projects, Runa divulges the projects that are being established to aid the afflicted parts of Bangladesh over the past 15 years.

The Water Treatment Plants Friendship have built encompass key locations of the coastal regions of the

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Runa Khan

Founder and Executive Director, Friendship.

Shyamnagar Upazila in Satkhira. “In 2013, we were already working with projects related to cyclones Sidr and Aila; that’s when we realized that the people in these remote areas need access to clean/safe drinking water. There was no point in building a large water plant because the needs were scattered. We planned to build smaller plants spread throughout the area,” she informs. However, before they could start this project Runa had to find the

necessary sources of funding. “I was in a conference in Geneva in 2013, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) there were discussing how they wanted to do some work with water. So we provided them with a proposal after which they agreed to fund two of our Water Treatment Plants in Satkhira.

Friendship Luxembourg provided the funding for the other four.”

They then proceeded to buy the water treatment

equipment from AK Khan WaterHealth who also provide the maintenance services. “Among all the vendors and different water treatment models that we researched, we found these instruments to be the most effective on the field level.

The plants are strategically placed and built based on the geographic conditions,” she elaborates.

“We are selling the water for 60 paisa per liter so that people can drink fresh water without having travel over

long distances or drink from unclean sources. This water is regularly checked and approved by ICDDRB, which makes it better than most of the mineral waters available in the market. It’s a six year project which is designed to create access to safe drinking water and to help raise awareness regarding healthcare; upon crossing six years we can vouch for its sustainability,” she emphasizes. She explains that the model has been developed by Friendship and

they are aiming to build more plants in the future.

“The project objective is to provide drinking water to the people in those areas who do not have access to it.

Thereby, we won’t be selling it in places like Dhaka because it violates the policy of the project,” she elaborates.

Access to clean water is one of the key components for health awareness and their disaster preparedness projects. Therefore, these Water Treatment Plants are a

part of Friendshp’s integrated projects where one project is linked with other projects in their six sectoral approach.

Health, being Friendship’s biggest sector has indeed made a difference for the vulnerable chars. “We now have 3 floating hospitals, 437 satellite and static clinics, alongside 525 community medic-aides that we’ve trained and educated.

These programs yield around 250,000 service beneficiaries every month,” Runa www.ibtbd.net

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postulates.

Friendship thoroughly values the need for education; this has led to the establishment of 78 schools, 73 adult learning centers and 5 secondary schools which have benefitted a large number of students. When asked about the standards of their schools, Runa expounds, “It’s very innovative in the sense that all the school teachers have acquired education below SSC matric; in fact we don’t take teachers who are above that level of academics, instead we prepare the people from the community to teach students. We train these community people by making them accustomed to the government curriculum so that they can sit for the national examination and then we reinforce cleanliness in the schools alongside encouraging environmental work such as gardening.” They also religiously follow a code of ethics, which is taught to every student during their daily assemblies as well as during classes, twice a week.

Government schools have reached out to Friendship in this regards and now 35 of those schools have adopted these lessons.

Over the last six years, the students at Friendship’s schools have achieved a 100% pass rate with exemplary results. Also, merit based scholarships are prevalent in their school; where the national average is 2%, in their schools it is up to 9.8%.

“Although they’re working in remote areas, our teachers can certainly teach. We’ve been systematically doing this for the past six years. The main areas of focus here are Gainbandha’s Char, Shyamnagar, Chilmari’s Char, Kurigram’s Char and various other remote locations” prides Runa.

Where disaster management, prevention and preparedness is concerned, Friendship has built nearly 3000 houses. Friendship has also facilitated housing solutions by taking 22 acres of land from the government and

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distributed it among the underprivileged. They have also constructed 12 raised plinths to provide flood shelter. They have also invested in water and sanitation by setting up thousands of latrines along with biogas latrines. They have also planted deep tube wells; in fact, last year they planted 167 deep tube wells.

“Our preparedness program has caught the attention of big organization abroad, to see how we handle disasters. Apparently this model has been proven feasible for corporations in terms of managing decisions. They want to see how we manage decisions, preparedness as well as how the governance of the organization works. Not only that, but how our values remain irrevocable throughout the organization,” she says.

Further down the line, Friendship has enabled a sustainable economic development program under which an organization named ‘Association for People’s Development’ (Strem) was created which has a micro-finance license. “We’re

trying to get the government to make this a mainstream program due to our risk-sharing-insurance model which can be used by fisherman and other agricultural workers. This can help them earn more from their sales so they can pay back the money they borrowed from local lenders,” reveals Runa.

Establishing governance for remote areas by working with the village justice system, Friendship has also provided government training as well. “Our booklets and manuals are there to explain government and governance issues. We also have paralegal booths in all the villages and our paralegal aids work with the justice system of the villages,” highlights Runa.

From running Contic, a tourism company which renovated old country boats, Runa has a fair share of knowledge on traditional boat building. Hence, Friendship takes a keen interest in boat preservation.

“We have held 15 national and international exhibitions for cultural preservation of boats. We want to set up a boat museum in collaboration with the Cultural Ministry, covering the documentation of building and preserving boats,” she says. The boats that have disappeared have been preserved and renovated by Friendship for 15 years. On a final note, the entrepreneur stresses that in her line of work, she’s gathered that the poor cannot afford poor solutions; one has to give them good things. “They must feel that they are part of this environment, that’s why we’ve created something which makes them feel at home,” concludes Runa.

Case Study

The Agora Turnaround

Abstract

By Ranjan De Silva

This is my experience leading a company in Bangladesh, Rahimafrooz Superstores Ltd., the operators of ‘Agora’, as their Chief Executive Officer [CEO] to make it profitable and gear it for expansion from July 2009.

This three-year experience helped me to apply and test the Human Performance Index (HPI) detailed in a white paper developed by the consultants of Sensei International in a real organizational setting from the perspective of a CEO rather than a consultant

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that we normally do for many other organisations around the world.

A saying by Sir Albert Einstein; “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted” epitomises the challenge businesses face when attempting to find out the causes that impact business results. While it is suspected that human elements such as leadership actions, interactions, behaviors and collaboration has a key role in supporting the human

and physical assets to convert organizational potential into capability and capability into business performance”, this area has not been adequately tested yet.

Sensei International, a leadership development consultancy that has guided companies in various countries over the last 20 years embarked on a project to find answers to this important question. A team of consultants from Sensei International led by their Senior Partner, Omar Khan that included the

Introduction

author of this paper, embarked on a study that resulted in publishing of the white paper; ‘The Sensei Human Performance Index ™ - The Necessary Bridge’.

The white paper attempts to organise the learnings, insights, concepts and methodology into a format that can be applied to improve business performance of companies.

This article attempts to examine the HPI in practice with the view of understanding and improving it for wider application.

After being in Team and Leadership Excellence consulting for 10 years, subsequent to 16 years in corporate life as the Director for Keells Foods and Keells Super, I took on a new interesting challenge as the Chief Executive Officer CEO of the Agora Supermarket Chain [owned by the highly diversified Rahimafrooz Group] in Bangladesh in July 2009.

This was a secondment from Sensei International where I continued to remain as a Partner and Senior Management Consultant.

I was fortunate to be able to apply the concepts and tools from the ‘Sensei HPI to achieve success at Agora during my 3 years tenure as their Chief Executive Officer [CEO]. This paper will try to illustrate what success looked like, what concepts and tools were used to achieve that success and how the various information and experience from this assignment helped understanding the ‘Sensei Human Performance Index’.

The key concepts from the Sensei HPI White Paper’ are given below to form the context for this article.

Organizations measure virtually everything, mostly aspects that are measurable. Companies wish to know how effectively they are leveraging resources, how competitively they are operating in terms of costs and effectiveness, the value of their brands, return on capital, market share, customer satisfaction and more.

Without measuring and

A team of consultants from Sensei International led by their Senior Partner, Omar Khan that included the author of this paper, embarked on a study that resulted in publishing of the white paper; ‘The Sensei Human Performance Index ™ - The Necessary Bridge’. The white paper attempts to organise the learnings, insights, concepts and methodology into a format that can be applied to improve business performance of companies.

having a base line, it's hard to aim for real improvement.

Yet one of the primary ingredients of business performance is human performance. In other words, how our human assets act, interact, behave, collaborate and engage with each other in functions, across functions, within and between teams. Yet human performance as an overall component of business results is not explicitly measured or tracked. This seems illogical and one reason given for this is the difficulty in measuring this aspect.

In fact, without measuring human performance, the things we are measuring are likely to be symptoms of what are often human performance issues. After all, leveraging of resources, managing of costs, builders and maintainers of brands, server’s customers, innovators and many more areas are performed by teams of talent and this is outcome or symptoms of human performance. Rather than measuring how human assets act, interact, behave, collaborate and engage with each other, most companies prefer to measure the outcome or symptoms, as it is easier and more measurable.

The ‘Sensei HPI’ white paper suggests that it is important to measure the performance of human assets and have initiatives to improve the performance of human assets in order to get the best outcome from the physical assets in order to improve the strategic business results of the company.

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The Four Areas of

‘Human Performance’

Leadership for Driving Growth:

Setting the right visionary goals, allocating and prioritizing resources, mentoring and role modelling, removing obstacles and making sure the right things are done and followed up.

Driving for Results:

Talent as a path to performance:

Getting recruitment and induction right, giving people goals that grow both them and the business, coaching and developing them and recognizing and rewarding the right behaviour and outcomes.

Making sure we track progress in real-time, test assumptions in the crucible of results, create successful relationships with customers, enable innovative ideas and choose the ones to back.

LEADERSHIP FOR DELIVERING GROWTH

TEAMS THAT WIN TALENT AS A PATH TO PERFORMANCE

DRIVING FOR RESULTS

Teams that Win

Ensuring the right teams are established, in the right roles, with meaningful resources and accountability. Ensuring these teams become net capability multipliers, focused on and acknowledged for progressing meaningful priorities for the business.

The Theoretical Concept

The central concept that is being inquired in this paper is; Strategic Business Results = Company Assets x Human Performance In algebraic terms, human performance would be the "x" factor. Human performance multiplied by company assets and company capabilities (themselves manifested through the actions and interactions of leaders and teams) delivers strategic business results. Validating this hypothesis requires the understanding of three key parts of the formula and

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These permeate all the activities by which a business delivers results.

And these constitute the "difference that makes the difference".

the components of each of the three parts and finding evidence.

In the above formula, strategic business results is what is defined by an organization and that could include measures such as Return on Capital Employed, Market Share, Revenue from New Markets, Employee Productivity and Revenue from New Innovation. Company assets are the value of physical and human assets.

While valuing physical assets is quite straight forward, valuing human assets is more challenging and needs more research for conclusion.

‘Human Performance’ can be presented using the following conceptual framework.

The Three Lenses Used to Look at the Four Areas of Human Performance

A key lesson from our twenty some years of global consulting with some of the world’s top companies on the human performance areas of their business (though at the time we didn’t have a name for it – we knew we were linking behavior to results), is that if you look for evidence of the above, you have to look through three lenses for the inquiry to be truly valuable and optimally illuminating.

SYSTEMS & PROCESSES:

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Are systems and processes present for each of these areas? Have they been institutionalized or are they ad-hoc?

EXECUTION:

Are they acted on as described, and subject to review and continuous improvement so they can be simplified, amplified and made more powerful?

03

QUALITY OF ENGAGEMENT:

02

Is the quality of engagement present that will make these more than a charade -- that will make them vital, living activities that build relationships, capabilities and results?

The ‘Sensei HPI’ white paper suggests that it is important to measure the performance of human assets and have initiatives to improve the performance of human assets in order to get the best outcome from the physical assets in order to improve the strategic business results of the company.

What I Learned in Practice

My dream was to make Agora a world-class company. I am extremely happy that we took the following steps to liberate human potential as detailed in the HPI; 1. We developed a robust 5-year plan [vision 2015] & Annual business plans [ABP’s] and introduced a strategic and operational management system to ensure excellent execution.

2. We developed a ‘values’ driven winning culture with quality leadership and excellent teamwork driven by behaviors based on Sensei’s 10 habits and community building workshops.

3. We developed the Agora Aaponjon promise; we trained every team member to abide by it and developed internal trainers to deliver the training. [Aaponjon is the Bangla word for ‘dear one’ or ‘near one’] 4. We developed a highly engaged team by resurrecting the ‘Agora’ song, introducing the reciting of the ultimate aspiration, values and quality policy, and energizing ourselves with the Agora song, cheers and the confidence anchor at every meeting in the company.

5. We strengthened Agora with new teams; category, project and property, business process [to launch the new ERP system], business development and logistics.

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teams; HR and Admin [to include a retail school to develop retail talent in Bangladesh, security with a broader role and Government Regulatory Affairs to engage the authorities], supply chain and compliance [to include quality and the quality management system [QMS] that manages the ISO 9000 – 2008 certification]. We also changed the structure of retail operations [earlier named operations], finance and marketing teams to make them more value adding. We recruited, developed and promoted team members to fill in various new roles.

6. We developed a performance oriented culture with Key Result Areas [KRA’s] linked to the Annual Business Plan [ABP], company values, 10 habits for effectiveness, Quality Management System [QMS] and Aponjon promise, ensuring monthly coaching, conducting 360 degree surveys to assess ourselves and apprising objectively.

7. We streamlined the employment status with a transparent path to permanent employment and introducing other employee benefits.

8. We had a process to maintain ISO 9000 – 2008 quality standards.

9. We changed the negative perceptions we had in the eyes of our guests regarding quality and price with improvement to the quality of our products and service, launching the ‘fresh campaign’ and re-launching ‘value week’ ensuring there were promotional offers 365 days of the year.

10. We opened an outlet in the port city of Chittagong that was profitable from day 1.

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11. We made a small profit in my first year in office and a substantial profit in the second year where we received the award as the no. 1 company in the Rahimafrooz Group in-terms of achieving revenue targets and no. 2 in achieving profits targets.

12. As the company became profitable team members started earning profit bonus and got recognized and rewarded through the Agora Aponjon Star and Agora Aponjon Superstar programs.

13. We successfully acquired 5 outlets of a competitor [PQS] and re-branded them ‘Agora’ and re-launched them in record time.

14. We migrated to a state of the art ERP system [SAP] and front-end retail system [Wincor] to prepare us for speedy unlimited growth.

15. We opened a state of the art distribution centre connected to the stores through SAP to support our 5-year expansion plan.

16. We had 4 new outlets being prepared to open the year I moved on.

17. We have set up a robust small and medium enterprise [SME] fresh produce supplier development process to gear our SME suppliers to support our expansion.

18. We have designed and started the implementation of a ‘Retail School’ to develop talent for the retail industry in the country.

19. We have developed a team, equipped with the required facilities, guided by caring leadership that can take Agora to continued success.

I feel a sense of pride with regard to the fighting spirit and resilience of the Agora team members. This is a trait I see in Bangladeshi’s in general with their ability to withstand and

bounce back after so many calamities such as wars, floods, poverty, earthquakes, power failures, hartals, regulatory challenges, and etc.

I have a lot of hope for Agora’s future to not only be a leading retail chain in Bangladesh but also a formidable player in the world retail scene given the strength of our brand, the quality of our team, the resources at our disposal and the foresight of our board of directors.

I have been sending a weekly message to all team members of Agora during the three years in office and my final weekly message is re-produced below to illustrate my thoughts and approach to leadership.

“We all have the potential to achieve your dreams. We all have the potential to make a positive contribution to our family, society, company and country. All we need to do is to live by the RSL values & I + 10 behaviors, follow the QMS processes, deliver the Agora Aponjon promise, extensively learn the retail business, develop leadership and team skills and passionately extend ourselves for the disciplined execution of the plans of the company.

These is the formula that helped ‘Unleash the Tiger within us’ and this is the formula that will continue to ‘Unleash the Tiger within us’ with patience, tenacity, willingness to learn from mistakes and resilience to bounce back up when we fall.

Achieving our dreams will take time, there will be challenges on the way, there will be disappointments to face, but we need to be patient and keep at it. The breaks will come at the right time. It will come not on our time frame but the time frame of the almighty, the architect of the master plan.

We can’t rush a sunrise, a journey of a thousand miles starts with one baby step, we can climb the highest mountain one step at a time and God’s delays are not God’s denials. Delays and challenges are provided to us for us to get stronger and only when we are fully prepared, we are given the fruits of our labor.”

So to the Agora team members reading this and everyone else, who want to learn from my experience; go on face those challenges, respond positively, and enjoy the journey. Unleash the tiger within you and savor the success.

Inside out

CLIMATE CHANGE

Funding The Forecast

By Mehrin Karim

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tabilizing the global climate is going to be one of the most urgent challenges in the coming decades.

A warming world affects all people and ecosystems, particularly those in the less developed countries who already suffer disproportionately from climate change impacts. In order to tackle this problem, developing countries would require funds to mitigate, or adapt to the problems; this is where climate finance plays a crucial role.

Tackling the Temperature

In developing countries, climate change investment needs are significant, but direct government funding is scarce. Therefore, they need financial support for stabilizing the steep trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions. The World Economic Forum has projected that by 2020, about $5.7 trillion will need to be invested annually in green infrastructure, much of which will have to be in today’s developing world. A recent research carried out by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) estimates that the cost for 48 Least Developed Countries (LDCs) to implement their post-2020 climate action plans would be around $93 billion per year.

Money Matter

Climate finance refers to financing channeled by national, regional and international entities for climate change mitigation and adaptation projects and programs. They include climate specific support mechanisms and financial aid for mitigation and adaptation. These activities are required to spur and enable the transition towards low carbon emission, climate-resilient growth, and development through capacity building, and research and development.

The necessary finance is sourced from public, private and public-private sectors. It is channeled through various intermediaries, notably Banks and Financial Institutions (BFIs), Microfinance Institutions (MFIs), development cooperation agencies, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its various funds, including those managed by the Global Environment Facility, non-governmental organizations and the private sector. The finance can come from developed to developing countries (North-South), from developing to developing countries (South-South), from developed to developed countries (North-North) or it

could just come from domestic climate finance sources in developed or developing countries.

However, meeting the scale of climate finance needed to support the LDCs in implementing their climate action plans was submitted to the Paris conference on climate change is a compelling priority. The IIED analysis suggests that this can be estimated at $93.7 billion per year between 2020 and 2030.

LDCs should be the focus for public climate finance. Middle-Income Countries will be far more able to attract private climate finance to support their mitigation programs and to raise tax revenues to support adaptation.

Opportunities and Challenges for LDCS

The fact is that many of the LDCs have not been following policies that follow the going green initiative or the most equitable. We're now seeing many countries beginning to challenge the business as usual scenario and explore new pathways that are fairer, less polluting, and more sustainable.

Nevertheless, government ministries typically work to very short time horizons. Finance and planning departments are often thinking about the immediate annual budget or working to, at most, a five-year plan. This short-term view makes it very hard to think outside of the box and not just extrapolate ways of addressing those problems faced during the present.

LDCs and other developing countries, with international financial support, can also reduce greenhouse gas emissions and sell the surplus carbon credits to other countries that need them (to reduce their own carbon footprints).

It is worth noting that the allocation of short-term, mid-term financial

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While continuing to invest in domestic climate action, the EU Climate Action Plan is scaling up climate finance to help the poorest and most vulnerable countries alleviate, and adapt to climate change.

supports for the developing countries has not been specified in the Agreement. The absence of predictability and reliability of climate finance in terms of resource allocation would pose a serious challenge for the developing countries to implement the Paris Agreement.

The Status of the Surge

The European Union is the largest contributor of climate finance to developing countries and is the world's biggest aid donor, collectively providing more than half of global Official Development Assistance (ODA) as stated by European Commission Climate Action Plan.

Climate change is being increasingly integrated into the EU's broader development strategy.

The EU’s Global Climate Change Alliance (GCCA) initiative provides technical and financial support to developing countries to integrate climate change into their development policies and budgets and to implement projects that address climate change. The GCCA is also a platform for dialogue and exchange of experience.

While continuing to invest in domestic climate action, the EU Climate Action Plan is scaling up climate finance to help the poorest and most vulnerable countries alleviate, and adapt to climate change. At least 20% of the EU budget will be spent on climate action by 2020.

Additionally, at least €14 billion, an average of €2 billion per year, of public grants will support activities in developing countries between 2014 and 2020. Poor countries have specific financial

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Accountability, transparency, and integrity in climate finance are areas that are difficult for Nepal to maintain, but the country has made significant progress in establishing an institutional mechanism for climate finance delivery.

needs and require specific types of financial instruments and inclusive intermediaries to manage the funds.

The director of the European Capacity Building Initiative, Benito Müller, wants to enhance direct access to the Green Climate Fund's (GCF) resources through devolution of decision-making to the local level. He has said that countries should test their existing financial transfer mechanisms, such as development banks, to choose the most effective way to reach local communities. He notes that local people and small enterprises "go to local banks for funding, not to the headquarters of the GCF." The Green Climate Fund (GCF) is a new fund set up under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to channel $100 billion a year from the developed countries to the developing countries to help tackle climate change. Bangladesh will have to compete with other countries for the GCF resources. Bangladesh was among the first eight countries to be provided with allocated funding by the GCF.

Obtaining more funding is not a matter of asserting vulnerability over others; it is accomplished by demonstrating good practice in transparency and accountability of climate funding.

Policymakers in Asia are also unlocking public-private flows for inclusive investment in low carbon resilience development.

climate finance are areas that are difficult for Nepal to maintain, but the country has made significant progress in establishing an institutional mechanism for climate finance delivery.

The Way Forward

Cases from Nepal

Photo: UNDP

Nepal has developed a policy framework to help integrate climate resilience into national and local development planning. The framework includes the National Climate Change Policy (2011), the National Framework on Local Adaptation Plans for Action (LAPAs) (2011) and the Low Carbon Climate Resilient Development Strategy; the latter of which is under development.

Nepal is also making progress in integrating climate resilience into economic, social and environmental objectives at a sector level. For example, in the energy sector, the National Rural and Renewable Energy Programme that was launched in 2011 is bringing together a number of existing initiatives and is providing a national platform for future work. Climate finance coming from the Scaling-Up Renewable Energy Programme (SREP) of the World Bank’s Climate Investment Funds is contributing to this.

Accountability, transparency, and integrity in

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The writer is a Senior Research Associate at Policy Research Institute of Bangladesh and can be reached at mehrin.karim07@gmail.com

Finance, more specifically knowledge of how to access available finance, is a crucial challenge for countries to tackle climate change. Governments and project developers should study the requirements of the various international and multilateral sources of finance. They must first explore domestic fund options before trying to access external funds.

However, many LDCs are putting money into addressing climate change which could have been used for other development activities like education.

This is due to lack of resources for climate change. Lessons should be learned from previous successes and failures of involving private finance for the global public good. The rights and the needs of the poor should guide any intervention. There are considerable challenges in instilling responsibility in private financial flows and reporting them in a transparent and accountable manner.

Interview

DUTCH-BANGLA CHAMBER

Md. Anwar Shawkat (Afser) President Dutch-Bangla Chamber of Commerce & Industry (DBCCI)

Creating Connections

Md. Anwar Shawkat (Afser) is the President of the Dutch-Bangla Chamber of Commerce & Industry (DBCCI). He is also the Director of the Chittagong Chamber of Commerce & Industry (CCCI), and the Bangladesh Shipping Agents Association. Anwar is a member of the Federation of Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) and Chittagong Foundation Trust and a lifelong member of the Bangla Academy. He is the recipient of a number of awards that include the Lions Club International President Award, the Mother Teresa Award, and the Jatiokabi Kazi Nazrul Islam Award. www.ibtbd.net

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The foreign chambers working in Bangladesh are set to form an apex body.

What are the goals and targets of this action?

Q

As the president of the Dutch-Bangla Chamber, you had arranged a fair in the Netherlands after the limbo of 1st July, 2016. What was the mission behind this initiative?

Why did you decide to take this drive?

We decided to hold the first international expo because the perspective regarding Bangladesh was quite bleak due to the events at the time. Following the attack, the rumors regarding the matter outweighed the facts about the incident. As the acting president, I wanted to take the initiative to restore the image of a peaceful and welcoming Bangladesh. We had sent a business delegation team that found businesses in Netherland who were interested in conducting their affairs in Bangladesh. This was during the time that the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, was also taking a trip to Europe; she showed further interest in holding the fair. This had led to the "General Trade Fair of Bangladesh in Netherlands"; the Dutch-Bangla EXPO-2016 took place during the 28th and 29th of September with the tagline "towards a rewarding relation".

During the expo, there were 42 participants, 70 delegates including representation from Board of Investment (BOI), Ministry of Foreign affairs (MOFA) and Ministry of Finance (MOF), international businessman, ambassadors and high commissioners. Distinguished participants included the chief guest, Finance Minister, Abdul Maal A Muhith; special guest, Guido Landheer, the Deputy Director-General of Foreign Economic Relations, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of Netherlands; and special guest, Sheikh Mohammad Belalwas, the Ambassador in the Netherlands.

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What were some of the notable sessions during the program?

How do you think programs such as this will impact bilateral relations?

Luxembourg; “Sustainable Water Management” by Dr. M Monowar Hossain, Institute of Water Modeling (IMW); and “Investment During the Business and Experience in Investment Seminar, Bangladesh” by several presentations Maarten Vebruggen, were given, these Managing Director of include: “The Deltadesh. I believe Bangladesh-Netherlands such programs are a Trade and Investment gateway to open trade Relations” by and economic Mohammad Korshad relations between two Alam Khastagir, the nations in a mutual Director General manner. It has (Europe), MOFA, Dhaka; provided businesses “Trade Opportunities with a platform to Between Bangladesh reach a wider degree and Benelux Region” by of potential clients Roy Suhash, President and promote Bangladesh Business themselves on an Chambers of Commerce international scale.

The Dutch-Bangla Chamber is the first joint chamber in Bangladesh; from the beginning, we have been trying to form a forum of Joint Chambers to accomplish our targets. With the guidance of the president of the Japan Bangladesh Chamber, Salauddin Kasem Khan, we were able to take this initiative. We started with the intention that to work on a global scale, we need to prioritize economic and business issues. Economic development is our primary concern and we want to show that other foreign chambers can contribute to our development and investment process.

There are many new roads opening with increased investment, business opportunities and intellectuals expressing interest. Our goal will be further attainable once we have more than 26 joint chambers in a single unit, functioning and taking actions collectively. We want to ensure that the forum will allow for the facilitation of any connection with another part of the world.

Despite becoming a nation after Bangladesh, Vietnam has achieved greater Direct Foreign Investment (FDI).

What are the challenges in attracting FDI to Bangladesh?

Bangladesh has a tremendous amount of

of Europe; the continent has provisions of a roadway and other modes of transport throughout each of the countries. The success of our RMG sector has led some of the companies to establish companies in other countries; this will further utilize Bangladesh's manpower and bring more remittance to the nation.

In this regard, we want to lend our support and assistance to these companies in order to expand towards a higher international level.

manpower in a limited amount of land; understanding and utilizing this dynamic is of utmost importance. We can look at Malaysia as an example of training human resources in order to achieve a flourishing economy. In this context, practical and technical knowledge of the respected fields is imperative. This will change the dynamic of having foreigners take higher positions in prominent companies, allowing for Bangladeshis to have the necessary knowledge to take these positions. We must provide positions to Bangladeshis who have experience and knowledge from working abroad. Additionally, we must incorporate and entice non-resident Bangladeshis to make investments in the nation; this will result in increased inward remittance.

What is the rewarding aspect of being a part of a business where every day is challenging?

How can the nation overcome these challenges?

This will happen if government support is provided and we take a more active position in national projects; private sectors cannot take on this challenge themselves. If you look at the larger bridge projects, they are under the supervision of foreigners with work being done by locals. We must change this trend and allow it to become a joint venture or allow the people of Bangladesh to work independently in order to learn from the experience. In terms of foreign investment, we must have legal coverage that prevents harassment and delayed set up time of the investors. Investors are deterred by the additional informal cost of funding a project which can lead to an increase in cost by up to 25%. The nation will see greater investment when these interest rates come down. Additionally, Non-Performing Loan (NPL) bankers should be more cautious regarding the record checking of investors, and the Credit

Information Bureau (CIB) by Bangladesh banks must have a database on a bank to bank basis.

Given that you have the tag line, 'towards a rewarding relation' and the economy of Bangladesh is changing with Special Economic Zones (SEZ) being created, what are the future projects that you have planned?

Bangladesh is

receiving global attention as a result of its geographical location and strategic value. There are many interested investments from neighboring nations that include Nepal because it is landlocked. We want the nation to create multiple corridors both inland, in areas such as China and also the sea, in Chittagong, Mongla, and Payra port. We should look to become connected with these nations in the same mannerism

There was a previous notion that government service was the best path in terms of a career in Bangladesh. This was broken by the success story of our generation of entrepreneurs who have generated success; their job experience in multi-national companies have allowed for business houses to flourish. For a successful business, one must work diligently and supervise everything that is being conducted in day to day operations. As a businessman, there are many hurdles that we must cross; the most apparent is the large scale corruption and legal coverage. These factors create a surmountable degree of insecurity in the business field.

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SPECIAL REPORT

Sparks Turn Having become a major player in the global apparels industry, Bangladesh is now seeing the emergence of a new promising sector which can further enhance the country’s export diversity – the Light Engineering Sector (LES). This newly emerging sector has witnessed exponential growth and contributed about 1.5% to our export earnings during the financial year end June 2016. Statistics of the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB), Bangladesh show more reasons to boast.

The export figure from engineering products stood at $510.08 million in FY 2015-16, making it a booster sector in our

Asaduzzaman

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industrial policy.

Additionally, time series data of the last five year shows that cumulative figures for engineering products in FY 2011-12 stood at $375.49 million. The export map had earlier shown bicycles as the leading item, whereas, now we have engineering equipment from the likes of Globatt and Duranto achieving global recognitions.

into Lights LIGHT ENGINEERING SECTOR

Din M Shibly

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Engineering Englightment

The import substitution sector provides critical support to industrial, agricultural and construction sectors by manufacturing a variety of spare parts. Players from this sector now claim that electrical goods like switches, sockets, light sheds, channels, cables and electrical fans and generators, which are manufactured by the LES are now meeting 48% to 52% of the country’s demand, which previously was met through imports. The LES is also called the “mother of all sectors”, because it provides back up support to cement, paper, jute, textile, sugar, food processing, railway, shipping, garments capital machineries by repairing and maintaining those.

Out of the major LES hubs in Bangladesh, the one in Rangpur–Dinajpur concentrates on producing spare parts for automobiles, railways, mills, factories and maintenance work. On the other hand, Bogra and Natore’s hub focuses more on foundry, agro-machinery, factory spares, LPC, cylinders and maintenance work.

Sylhet’s hubs are focus on spare parts for mills and factories. The Dhaka-Gazipur-Narayangonj hubs rely on producing capital machinery, bicycles, construction equipment and spare parts. Khulna-Barisal hubs are concentrating on spare parts of mills, factories and industries; and the Chittagong hubs focus on ship breaking activities, spare parts for automobiles and maintenance work.

LES Contribution to Various Sectors CONSTRUCTION SECTOR

mixture machine, piling machine, construction crane, soil moulding, machine, auto bricks manufacturing machine, brick crasher, stone crasher, concrete mixer machine, vibrator machine.

AUTOMOBILE SECTOR

spring, break dram, bush, pulley, piston ring, gijon pin, gijon bush, slip, head sheet valve, auto crankshaft, hanger pin, head seat, gear shaft, nut & bolt, auto valve, auto gas cylinder, connecting bush, shaft, cabling, sit socket, block liner, booster connecting, booster body, booster pin, automobile filter, radiator engine fan, CNG engine fan, motor cycle bearing, chain cover, motor cycle pinion, motor cycle sit cover, motor cycle carrier, motor cycle cylinder and motor cycle paddle.

PAPER & PULP SECTOR

manual knife, gate valve, agitator, pneumatic valve, compressor pump, gear coupling, felt roll, helical gear, spur gear, herringbone gear, compressor, roller, pump and cutter.

PHARMACEUTICAL SECTOR

pharmaceutical blister, packing machine, tablet packing machine, tablet steep machine, tray dryer, tablet machine 16 punch, fluid bed dryer machine SS, film cutting machine tablet, liquid filling, sealing and labelling machine, pharmaceutical powder mixer machine, tablet steep machine, malit mill machine, wrapping machine.

A study by Japan International Cooperation Agencies (JICA) has shown that there are a total of 40,000 small-scale light engineering enterprises in Bangladesh producing around 10,000 different types of items for construction, agriculture and other industries. Another study, conducted by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in partnership with the UK's Department for International Development (DFID) and the Norwegian government, shows that this sector employs around 600,000 people who are involved in 50,000 micro enterprises, and 10,000 small and medium enterprises. The study conducted by the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), however, estimates that the sector comprises of around 40,000 enterprises, employing some 800,000 people. These figures are different because of the methodological variations in the studies. However, given this information, it is quite ironic how the LES draws such little attention from policy makers. This is especially alarming as it has emerged as a potential cost cutting sector by producing at least 50% the items which can be applied as import substitutes.

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MOULD & DIE SECTOR

industrial parts, egg tray, garment hanger, water filter, cookeries, plastic bottle, cosmetic, toy, sanitary and shoe.

RAILWAY SECTOR

center p-boat, brake bim, brake shaft, 2 inc, CI coupling, brake hamper, rail channel pin and cable, bearing, elbow, mini-puli, bolt, cylinder liner, piston, compressor, S.P. cylinder, hanger and horn.

MARINE SECTOR

marine popular shaft, sugan bush, sugan, head, head valve, ring, fiver bush, machine tools, lathe machine, power press, shaper, hydraulic press, cooling tower, etc.

The Bogra Scenario Bogra is a major economic hub in the northern region of Bangladesh with traditional agricultural activities and recently developed agro-based industries. A number of SME clusters have developed in the region through successful horizontal and vertical integration with local and international markets for raw materials and finished products.

At least 7 clusters were identified where about 4,000 industrial units of SMEs operate in different groups along with other traditional SMEs. These clusters have maintained both local and national marketing networks for selling their products and a small portion of these products are exported to the neighboring countries according to the study by Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD).

The iconic Vandari Group, hailing from Chittagong started their business in this region in 1964. The IBT team accompanied

by Golam Azam Tiklu (President of the Forum for Agro Machineries Manufacturing and Processing Zone) and Badol Sarkar (President of the Bangladesh Agricultural Machineries Manufacturing

Association) visited an agro parts manufacturing factory called Al Madina in BSCIC. They were lead into a special room for design where their manager, Rias Uddin Mondol, explained how their factory was making many types of dices in several designs. This factory’s line of production starts from separating raw materials to making the final product.

The lengthy but smooth process starts with scraps being boiled and melted in the furnaces then shaped into dices, with workers from both genders provided with equal employment opportunities. The team then visited Reaz Metal, which produces foundry and industrial parts. Many brands of tube wells produced by Reaz Metal are

marketed under different brand names around the country. The manufacturing procedure was mostly locally innovated and done manually, a striking feature of the Light Engineering Sector in Bogra worth mentioning. At the end of the extensive tour, the team visited the Mohoni Jute Mills where export quality jute products are being produced.

The machineries used in the process were collected as scrap from Adamjee Jute Mills. As impressive as they already may be, there is no denying the fact that with proper the knowledge and technological supports, these factories would be able produce much more to add further value to this sector in this region.

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DIFFERENT ENGINEERING PRODUCTS IN EXPORT BASKET (VALUE MLI US$) 2012-2013

2013-2014

2014-2015

2015-2016

105.59 105.08 112.89 126.06 99.15

58.18 17.97 25.8 27.19

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63.09 54.63

88.88

90.11

88.53

49.54 48.73 63.06 83.03

3.2 1.58 5.36 3.89 9.22

59.73 56.81 54.33 57.9 48.56

50.93 66.38 49.17 27.88 24.47

174.8

2011-2012

OTHERS

BI CYCLE

ENGINEERING PRODUCTS

ENGINEERING EQUIPMENT

STAINLESS STEEL WARE

COPPER STEEL

IRON STEEL

Insights from the Stakeholders

The LES Value Chain The value chain in this import substitution industry is home grown. On the buyers side one arm comprises of domestic wholesale, domestic retail and domestic consumers and on another arm we see international wholesale, international retail and international buyers. The bottom of the supply chain starts with reverse engineering: Design and sample collection followed by and then raw material collection, processing, conditioning and warehousing of parts. The next step requires production and processing (casting, marching, welding, heat treatment, fitting).

Then assembly installation of BOF items e.g. electrical items. Afterwards there is a quality assurance test which is followed by packaging and transportation.

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Masudur Rahman Milon, the President of Bogra Chamber of Commerce and Industry is a second-generation businessman. According to him, LES has immense potential in the region, not only through local sales but through exports as well.

“The Special Economic Zone (SEZ) is going to be inaugurated in January 2017 comprising an area of 350 acres of land accommodating many joint venture companies. Some of these are Chinese companies, with whom the MOU is already signed. The SEZ will hold a central water treatment plant and will help the business greatly in this area.”

However, Milon identified that the problems regarding the lack of gas and industry-friendly tax system needed to be fixed. Of the

latter, they have already had discussions with the NBR Chairman. He states, “Our cost of tiles production is more than 30% than that of the area where gas is available.” He added that right now they were getting industry loans at 10%, which was previously 18%.

He also lamented that since many of these companies were home grown proprietorships, they were not aware about compliance issues. He urged that the respective associations look into this matter.

Md. Imtiaz Hossain Chowdhury, Chairman, Bangladesh Steel & Engineering Corporation (BSEC) discussed how the region could do much better had there been enough

policy implementation to ensure the growth and sustenance of the Light Engineering Sector. “Since the area produces mostly agro-based machineries, I thought of making tractors locally. In pursuit of that we held an open discussion forum with representatives from Rajshahi Agricultural University and Mymensingh Agricultural University. The experts however opined that the project would not be financially viable as the market is not big enough.”

However, he is hopeful about the possibilities of setting up a dynamic industry of producing power tillers and hand tillers, products which are also being imported from India and China. “As of my best knowledge, only one company named Alim Industries in Sylhet is making power tillers. In Bogra, we would like to build the industry to manufacture the same instruments. The official process has already been initiated.”

Soy Pukuria

that the auto power thresher made with homegrown technology which innovated in Bogra is now used in many rice-producing countries. “We do not have the distribution network across the country. Besides, our people are going across the line of specifications.

Rangpur Foundry Limited (RFL), a sister concern of PRAN Group has made their 90% hand tube well with our parts and our products are exported to Myanmar and other countries.” As an expert of this LES industry, he said that raw materials used are basically scraps collected from here and there. He also added that to attain global standards, they need factories, which are business and environment friendly.

Associations which can aid the Light Engineering Sector

Md. Sarkar Badol, President of Bangladesh Agricultural Machineries Manufacturing Association (BAMMA) in Bogra said, “I was a witness to the initial LES development in Bogra.

It all started with the arrival of shallow engine boats which required spare parts and other mechanical support. This necessity lead to the creation of the market in Bogra.” According to him, the growth of LES in Bogra owes to the Vandari and Jamil Group. Many of the technicians working in those factories later become entrepreneurs themselves.

Golam Azam Tiklu, President, Forum for Agro Machineries Manufacturing and Processing Zone (FAMMPZ) expressed his keen desire for the development of the heavy industry hub at Soy Pukuria. Tiklu said, “Our centrifugal system-pump has been exported to many countries but due to the lack energy e.g. gas and electricity, the production cost risen. The humid environment in Bogra makes it conducive for industries such as cast iron. However, we are still using ancient methods.” He continued

There are numerous associations which cover this sector and its activities.

This includes the Bangladesh Engineering Industry Owner’s Association (BEIOA), Bangladesh Electrical Merchandise Manufacturers Associations (BEMMA), National Association of Small and Cottage Industries of Bangladesh (NASCIB), Bangladesh Automobile Assemblers & Manufacturers Association (BAAMA), Bangladesh By-Cycle Parts Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BBPMEA). There are committees in the Ministry of Industries, special committee under the Business Promotion Council and training possibilities under the Bangladesh Industrial and Technical Assistance Centre (BITAC).

BITAC has yet to start their operations in Bogra. With their training and input, this crucial sector could be given the much needed boost.

Furthermore, the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) needs to be more active regarding their efforts and execution of policies which can help these SME companies flourish.

What’s Next A study report prepared by Dr. Khondaker Golam Mozzem, Additional Research Director, CPD titled, ‘Development of Small and Medium Enterprises of the Bogra Region: Challenges and Initiatives’, pointed that, traditional agricultural activities and recently developed agro-based industries have been boosting the LES in this region. A number of clusters have developed in Bogra region including agro products, fisheries, poultry and dairy farms. These SME clusters have naturally formed with successful horizontal and vertical integration with local and international markets for raw materials and finished products. The 7 clusters identified in the Bogra region have maintained both local and national marketing networks for selling their products. A small portion of these products are exported to the neighboring countries. The Soy Pukuria Area by the side of Bogra Nogayon highway could be the next big thing with its 15.42 acres of land.

This proposed heavy industrial hub along with the SEZ is on the way; the sooner they arrive, the faster this sector will blossom.

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Dr. Kamal Uddin

Head Director, Institute of Appropriate Technology Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET)

small and medium scale industries adorned with appropriate technologies have made a substantial contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) during the last few decades and created appreciable employment opportunities. The small industrial sector has been playing a key role as support to all other industries by supplying various types of machinery and spare parts, and also industrial units and capital machinery.

This comes to a vital support to other sectors of the economy. It is estimated that there are more than 50,000 light engineering industrial units in the country, which operate at a variety of scales and capacities.

What are the main challenges and objectives to proliferate appropriate technology and industrial growth?

Q

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What is the status of appropriate technology and industrial development in Bangladesh?

Appropriate Technology and the industries have historically acted in a pivotal role in the industrial enterprise landscape both locally and within economies globally. Especially, growth with clear benefits for poverty reduction puts a premium on integrating, augmenting productivity and profitability. In the present era, all progressive countries have been intensifying their efforts to develop appropriate technology as part of their development strategy. Appropriate technologies in industries have potentials to make a significant contribution towards technological and economic development along with wide opportunities for employment generation. The analysis shows that the

In the endeavor to proliferate the appropriate technology and industrial growth, there are many challenges of various natures. In order to promote this sector and enhance its competitiveness, a strong institutional network would be needed to provide support in a variety of ways. The key areas of institutional support needed for the development of this sector include information, training and counseling, technology, finance, market, industrial extension and management development.

Trade bodies should be more responsive in the delivery of promotional and other supportive measures for rapid industrial development. The first step is awareness of competition, followed by

LIGHT ENGINEERING SECTOR understanding strength and weaknesses in order to upgrade.

In order to proliferate appropriate technology and industrial growth, product items produced in the sector should be of required configuration and quality.

Furthermore, the export items should conform to international standards.

One can disseminate the challenges into those that are internal and others that are external. Internal challenges include informational barriers, problems of raw material availability, technological upgrades, marketing, labor turnover, functional problems and marketing challenges. External problems are procedure barriers, government barriers, customer and competitor challenges, business environment challenges, and tariff and non-tariff barriers.

The Trade Promotion Organizations such as the different Chambers of Commerce & Industry and Trade & Industrial Associations will have to play a crucial role to meet the challenges of the sector. The industrial units will not be in a position to tackle many issues. They will have to obtain solutions through the trade bodies, government agencies, etc. It will be extremely useful to set up a central fund by the trade bodies to deal with various settlement cases with a substantial contribution from the government. In order to realize the full potential of the industry, all the stakeholders need to be committed to finding lasting solutions to the prevailing problems in the sector and to follow a number of objectives and implement the prioritized activities.

Could you elaborate upon the objectives that need to be carried out?

There are five major objectives include: Objective 1- We must enacting appropriate policy measures in order to update and implement

Bangladesh's industrial policies based on a public-private dialogue in order to reduce import items, facilitate access to equipment and support export transactions.

Objective 2- Provide access to finance, which will allow industries to access finance for rehabilitation and adequate technology.

Objective 3- Upgrading Technology that will allow the nation to gradually advance from first to new generation machinery and improve quality monitoring and source of reference Objective 4- We must give priority capacity building and skill development. This entails two aspects. The first is to upgrade agro machinery, automobile spares, and foundry technical workforce skills.

The second will is to build marketing and management skills for factories and foundries entrepreneurs in order to respond to the markets demand.

Objective 5- Adopting advanced marketing technique that will strengthen the sector Trade Support Institutions with marketing tools and techniques in order to develop and make visible national products on the domestic and international markets

What would be the vital road map for the industrial sector in the next five years look like?

Establishment of following infrastructures and facilities can be a vital part of the roadmap for the next five years: Industrial Park.

CNC System Training Center.

Cluster-based Common Facility Center.

Modern Induction Furnace Projects.

Develop and Implement Auto-Industry Road Map. JVs in highly technological sub-sectors of light engineering sector including auto parts, foundry, mold, CNC Technology Training Center.

Setting-up of Common Facility Centers (functions: R&D, Special Jobbing, Training, testing, design, accreditation & certification,

Setting-up of Individual Specific Facility in Industry(such as heat treatment plant, surface coating plant, specialized testing lab) Technology Incubation Centre Technology Transfer Centre Technology Innovation Centre

What can be the strategic approach for the faster development of appropriate technology and thereby the industrial sector?

There is a need for the faster technological development of appropriate technology and engineering industrial sector.

Improving research organizations involved in the field of science and technology is necessary; there is a need to set up centers of excellence in selected fields. Special emphasis has to be given to automobiles, agro-machinery and spare parts of mills, factories, and industries. Time bound programs may be drawn up for development, improvement and expansion of products and processes in the sector development. Policies for the development of technology should be integrated with macroeconomic, industrial, agricultural, commercial and educational policies.

Entrepreneurs should be linked with the supply of technology.

Special attention should be given to bring the fruits of scientific and technological innovation to the doorsteps of the industries. The sector can take advantage of wider diffusion of modern technology and benefit from the globalization process.

Development of technology is a long run process within which short-term strategies should be adopted for catering to the immediate needs of the economy. The sector should be able to take advantage of the benefits of progress in technology.

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Dr. K Siddique-e Rabbani Honorary Professor, Department of Biomedical Physics & Technology, University of Dhaka

Q

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What are your thoughts on Bangladesh as an industrial hub?

Bangladesh has an extremely intelligent, motivated and creative workforce that can transform any country into an industrial hub. During the 18th century, Bengal was one of the richest regions on the globe and industries developed by local artisans and craftsmen contributed to about 50% of the region’s economy.

Unfortunately, the British colonial

powers destroyed all this through their inverted tax policies in order to make the local production uncompetitive against tax free imports from Britain. Far more unfortunate is the fact we have not deviated prehistoric tax and regulatory policies. The attitudes they tried to inculcate among our educated class have not only lingered on, in certain cases, multiplied even though we won our freedom a long time ago. We were not able to realize our full industrial potential, primarily because of our failure to change these policies and regulations.

One has to understand the dynamics of industrialization that lead to an industrial revolution. This is only possible beginning with very small (or micro) industries grown on the technological talents of the local people, and products that help enhance the quality of life of the common people around. The latter creates a quick and easy market and since the technology is usually within the grasp of many others and the local market is familiar, its needs are well known to designers of products, who themselves usually become the manufacturers. The market is also large because of the large population and leads to

LIGHT ENGINEERING SECTOR establishment of more and more industries of a similar nature. This creates a network of backward linkage for supply of component parts and the network builds up quickly.

When competition grows, the need comes to improve the technology, both of products and processes. This calls for research and development and often the industries come to the universities, which creates the university-industry interaction. With improvement in the quality of products, this naturally creates a favorable situation for export to countries with similar socio-economic backgrounds.

Although the individual purchasing capability in these countries is low, but when one considers that proportion of the global population in this category, the combined market size and the economy involved are huge. Unfortunately, our leaders and policymakers never understood this phenomena, therefore, our concentration went in the wrong direction. Despite the fact that our immediate neighbor India has a similar historical, social and cultural background, they went up the industrial ladder faster, with a much better understanding of the scenario that encouraged and promoted an indigenous technology based industry early in its path to development.

One needs to be clear that such dynamism in the industrial sector is never possible with industries based on entirely imported technology and machinery.

These are mostly built on turn-key projects and there is absolutely no need, in fact, no scope for integrating local technical and engineering talents in such industries.

Local engineers may only be needed for installation and maintenance.

We were not able to realize our full industrial potential, primarily because of our failure to change these policies and regulations.

Can you give us a few examples of similar cases in other countries who were able to do better?

The above scenario is true in most of the Third World, as all of these countries came out of a colonial past that tried to ‘exploit’ local people. However, positive development that took place in a few of these counties can be related to individual or group leadership that had a science and technology backgrounds and a proper desire and vision for standing on their own feet in science, technology and industry. These three issues are intimately interconnected for a country’s development.

Regarding the scientific leadership in some other countries mentioned, it was Jawharlal Nehru in India who had a science degree in his graduation, Mahathir Mahmud

in Malaysia was a doctor, having a science background as well. South Korea’s military ruler gave a blank cheque to a scientist friend for the country’s development, and China in its formative stage had many engineers among its Politburo.

Unfortunately, Bangladesh has always lacked this aspect.

There are compliance and export competitiveness issues when it comes to these technology based small and medium industries.

How do we get past these problems?

The compliance and export competitiveness issues arise when we want to export to the rich countries of the North. We have made it difficult for ourselves by concentrating only on our labor oriented sectors and making the more developed countries as our export destinations. Obviously the entrepreneurs in these sectors received a great deal of support from the Government over the last few decades and are mature enough to work out necessary solutions at the right time.

On the other hand, if our indigenous technology based industry proliferate and if we can export to the Third World countries, the compliance and export competitiveness issues will not arise at all. We still have all the avenues open to us.

This is the direction we should move in and it is never too late to tap this huge potential sector.

Not only will this contribute to boosting our industry and economy, it will help enhance the quality of life of the people in our country, as well as in all Third World countries.

Eventually this will lead to improvement of our capabilities, both technically and managerially, and a time will come when our products will be accepted by the rich countries as well. www.ibtbd.net

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The LES is also called the “mother of all sectors�, because it provides back up support to cement, paper, jute, textile, sugar, food processing, railway, shipping, garments capital machineries by repairing and maintaining those.

different perspective THE BIG QUESTION

ARE ROBOTS TAKING OVER?

Industry 4.0

By M. Rokonuzzaman, PhD

The U.S presidential election is at our doorsteps. Like many other recent election campaigns, job losses due to offshoring is a strong agenda. With the opening of Adidas’ highly automated so-called “speed factory” in Bavaria, Germany and the plan to open another one in Atlanta, USA next year, such an agenda is losing its momentum. Enduring over last 30 years, the wave of moving factories from Western countries to China, Brazil, Indonesia, Bangladesh or other developing countries

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to take the advantage of low-cost labor is about to show a reverse trend.

Instead of counting joblessness due to offshoring, a new indicator has popped up to track the progress, it is termed as “reshoring”. To take advantage of technologies from robotics and automation to deliver better products at lower prices, companies like Ford, Wal-Mart, GE or GM, once blamed for offshoring, have started to bring back jobs to the USA. It is cheaper to have highly automated plants, terming them as Industry 4.0, in the USA or Germany, as these countries have a high quotient of skilled labor to work in collaboration with robots.

Moreover, the shipping cost reduces for having the plant near major retailers. The programmable robots also allow producers to manufacture products like shoes as per the need of each group of customers in less than 5 hours, as opposed to requiring weeks to produce and ship them from plants located in China or Indonesia.

Bringing plants back, or opening new ones in advanced nations is not a political decision, though.

The same economics of production that once drove plants out, is bringing them back with the same initiative to produce products at lesser cost.

Moreover, unlike the past, this reverse trend will also produce better products, as machines will be taking over many low-skilled jobs, being performed in developing countries.

Robots collaborating with humans on the factory floors that are priced as low as $24,000 have the

potential to revolutionize production lines. Moreover, due to innovation, scale, and scope advantage, the price of these robots will keep falling, while the performance will keep rising.

According to an International consultancy, by 2025, advanced robots will boost productivity by as much as 30% in many industries, and lower total labor costs by 18% in countries such as the USA, China, and Germany.

It is no longer a debate; it has evolved into a reality that must be dealt with. It may take years to observe major change, but the sign of cusp of globalization U turn is very clear. The argument could be that the rate of growth of demand in developing countries of those products produced by foreign manufacturers will offset the loss of production caused by relocating plants near the western retailers.

Another point could be what developing countries are going to produce in the order to earn foreign currency from advanced nations to buy those particular products; basic raw materials or petroleum will not suffice in this context. Due to the development of robotics and other automation technologies, advanced nations like the USA, or Canada are increasing the production from existing natural deposits at a lesser cost. The oil price plunge in recent history is primarily attributed to the application

Bangladesh’s success of creating more than 4 million jobs in the RMG sector will likely face barriers to scale up.

of advanced technologies to extract more oil at less cost from same oil reservoirs, which were once non-viable.

As a result, the USA has emerged as an exporter of certain natural products like LPG, instead of being an importer. Similarly, Canada has been using robotics-mining machines to dig down further in their underground mining production facilities to extract more ore at lower

costs than before. The emergence of drones and GPS guided farming machinery are opening the opportunities for many advanced nations to increase farm outputs and lower the costs.

At the cusp of the reverse of globalization, what are issues developing countries need to focus on? The development of robotics and automation have double the impact on the industrial strategies of developing nations. On one hand, the demand for low-skilled labor in manufacturing for export will keep falling. On the other hand, the strategy of producing import substitutes by taking the advantage of low-cost labor will also keep losing its edge. Instead of engaging low-cost unskilled labor, the delegation of such roles to advanced machines will produce better quality products, at lower costs.

Under the given circumstance, developing countries should have a holistic change in developing their production competitiveness. There are recommendations to foresee the success of this dynamic.

In this regard, the large-scale investment in power and infrastructure to scale up the recent success of low skill-based manufacturing for export should be reviewed. For example, Bangladesh’s success of creating more than 4 million jobs in the RMG sector will likely face barriers to scale up.

Moreover, due to the decreasing role of labor in RMG manufacturing, wage rates will face added barriers. Advanced technology based innovations should be integrated into indigenous

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local production processes to produce higher quality products at lower costs. For example, smart feeding, or production environment control with the support of smartphone-centric innovations could open the opportunity for reducing the cost of farm outputs, and also reduce the cost. Instead of solely relying on imported capital machinery, a focus should be given on retrofitting innovative features to production processes to improve competitiveness.

The proliferation of broadband, Internet of Things (IoTs) and the aging population of advanced nations are also opening the service export opportunities.

The same AI and robotics technology, which is about to bring back manufacturing jobs in the USA and make cars driverless, is also able to make human consciousness ambient anywhere in the world.

Although robots are being perceived to be the solution to take the role of delivering services, primarily to a growing number of elderly people, those devices will still be needing human consciousness to be useful.

Previously, in order to make human consciousness present in operating machines, the operator had to be physically present in the work environment. Such necessity encouraged the immigration of many taxi drivers to end up on US soil.

But the possibility of tele-transporting human consciousness over the Internet in semi-autonomous machines, whether we call them as robots or IoTs, is opening the opportunity for making human consciousness ambient in

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It appears that the development of the next of wave of technology is opening the opportunity for both advanced as well as developing countries. There is no doubt that due to the growing automation there will be net job losses in existing industries, but many more jobs will be created in the service industries global service delivery workspace. This means it can be applied in nursing homes of Tokyo or in the restaurants of New York.

It appears that the development of the next of wave of technology is opening the opportunity for both advanced as well as developing countries. There is no doubt that due to the growing automation there will be net job losses in existing industries, but many more jobs will be created in the service industries, particularly to look after the growing elderly population. In this

The writer is an academic, researcher and activist. He currently serves as a technology, innovation, and policy professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at North South University. He can be reached at zaman.rokon.bd@gmail.com.

round, developing countries will likely be net loser in manufacturing.

Nevertheless, the opening of the opportunity of tele-transporting the consciousness in robotic care givers or service providers will create much more new jobs for developing countries in the global service space, than likely job losses in manufacturing. To take advantage from such emerging opportunities, policy makers of developing countries should be far smarter than ever before.

Instead of just developing physical infrastructure and being lenient on regulations for hosting export oriented manufacturing plants, the smarter strategic option is to develop the local innovation capacity for continuously improving the capability of producing better products at lower costs. On the other hand, an educated service oriented work force needs to be developed to exploit the emerging service markets all over the world over via broadband.

Interview

CEMS GLOBAL

Meherun N. Islam President CEMS Global

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Meherun N. Islam is the Group President and Managing Director for CEMS Global Ltd. and Market Edge Ltd. She has thirty years of experience in the global exhibition industry.

Her main areas of expertise are management, marketing, advertising, public relations as well as media consultancy. She is the recipient of numerous awards that include TVC “Land of Story” at the 5th Cannes Corporate Media & TV Awards, the Silver Stevie Award, and the Film Art & Tourism Festival “FilmAT”.

Q You are currently the President of CEMS Global in Bangladesh and the United States. What are the challenges of maintaining the efficiency of such a large organization? Are there any particular obstacles that you face in each of the respective branches?

Whenever an organizer is planning a big event, they are bound to face some forms of impediments. The exhibition industry faces constantly evolving challenges and countering these are a vital part of the job. At CEMS Global, we try focusing on how to tackle those obstacles and improve our subsequent events, given that we organize a series of events. However, we also believe internal communication is a vital part of any large organization since it can have an adverse impact on the external communication of a company. We do acknowledge that the whole concept of corporate events’ methodology is changing.

We are still in the process of learning how Generation Y, a group that consists of those of 20 to 35 years of age, is taking over the corporate world and they are constantly shifting towards networking. Nowadays, corporate stakeholders attend Meetings, Incentive Travels, Conferences and Exhibition (MICE) and industry related events to meet like-minded people as they want to conduct business based on networking. In our organization, we have the motto “there is no work without network.”

CEMS Global also tries to have a substantial focus on the marketing and promotional segment; given that at the end of the day, it is all about marketing our services to our current and potential stakeholders.

Languages and cultures vary from one place to another, and it also affects how we market or plan an

The exhibition concept in our nation has not developed properly.

In this regard, supportive actions such as building more world class expo centers, better security, and improved travel conditions are needed in aiding this industry.

event for our various global branches.

How has your experience abroad shaped your methodology when tackling an event or project?

When we had first planned to establish this company back in 1990; everyone thought the idea was irrational including those who were closest to us. We had a vision which was not welcomed or encouraged by many

people. Our work takes place all over the globe.

Therefore, we have to constantly be on the move from one country's branch office to another.

Furthermore, we also try to attend different events which are organized by and for event associations and event planners all over the world. Attending such events helps us comprehend and learn about new technologies in the event industry, how communication differs from one place to another along with obtaining critical thought processes on how the development in the events sector is changing the global marketing trends. People may not realize this, but one can learn a lot from vocational education as well. Attending such events is a vital part which helps us in developing our acquired knowledge even further.

It changes how we perceive event experiences. Since we have to adapt innovative methods, our tactics are improved through innovation and customization for our individual projects.

For an event or exhibitions, is there any lacking in terms of resource and facility that need to be addressed?

Yes, if we are talking from Bangladesh’s perspective. In Bangladesh, we do face some issues when it comes to policies. Around the world when any organization is arranging an event, taking

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permission to organize such event is not difficult as they can easily take permission from any ministry or trade ministry. However, to organize each event here, we need to obtain permission from different ministries, higher officials and sometimes it is quite heart-breaking to face that we are not even properly welcomed, even though such an event is quite helpful for our economy. Sometimes we get stuck in the feedback loop from one ministry or association to another. It becomes very time-consuming and a lengthy process which in turn gravely costs us in terms of efficiency as well as economically. I urge organizers and government to come together and find common ground for finding a simple solution to this problem in the near future. The exhibition concept in our nation has not developed properly. In this regard, supportive actions such as building more world class expo centers, better security, and improved travel conditions are needed in aiding this industry.

CEMS plans a wide range of exhibitions, what are the keys to your success in tackling such diverse projects?

Research, research and of course some more research! The whole point of organizing such exhibitions is to create a platform for local producers, manufacturers, and international companies to have an opportunity to network; organizing such event is dependent on the quality of research conducted. Whether someone comes up with a new event concept or wants to explore on potential clients and his or her products, there is no alternative to research. Also one should always have an eye out on how the competitors in the market are doing. All these aspects are related to Research. CEMS Global has established a strong research team over the years. We focus on

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CEMS Global has established a strong research team over the years. We focus on stakeholders’ current business situation and look into which direction their plan is heading when we conduct our research. stakeholders’ current business situation and look into which direction their plan is heading when we conduct our research. Brainstorming can also be very helpful when we try to come up with creative ideas for our exhibitions or educational seminars.

And last but not least, our experiences and diligent workforce work to provide their best service.

What are the numerous ways that a successful event helps boost a company or initiative?

The success of an event motivates the entire

team. It increases the satisfaction level within our workforce which in turn allows them to work harder for the next event.

It boosts their confidence level, helping them to present better a pitch while conducting meetings with the clients. I am very proud of the fact that in our organization CEMS Global; the whole workforce works in a constructive manner and that the employees feel like a part of the CEMS family.

Given the development of data as a necessity for growth, how does conducting market research allow for the developmental works of your companies?

As I have mentioned before, market research is crucial for any service based organization. Market research helps us when conducting new concepts and modifying existing products, which in turn helps us to provide our clients with better services as well as improves our performance. We focus on product ‘additions’ and ‘modifications’ although we try to develop new concepts side by side.

Multi-tasking is an important aspect of our organization. Sometimes we might even feel the requirement present old ideas as new ideas with a few new twists. For example, here in Bangladesh, we are trying to introduce CEMS Global as part of MICE industry even though it has always been part of the MICE INDUSTRY; it is just that our public was not aware of the term MICE.

Interview

WOMEN ON TOP

Furnishing Success Neela Manwar

Managing Director Athena's Furniture & Home Decor

Q

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How has the journey for Athena’s Furniture and Home decor been so far?

Athena’s Furniture and Home Décor spread its wings back in 2004 with 12 staff members initially. Our first Showroom had been set up in Gulshan and the factory was and still is in Tongi.

From where I live, visiting and supervising both places became an issue as I live in a joint family; this entailed taking care of my three children, my husband, and my in-laws. It became an immense challenge to juggle both work and family life. However, as our operations started to settle, things got easier and the company blossomed. The Athena family now comprises of around 500 staff members after operating for 12 years. We now have three showrooms in Uttara, Banani, and Gulshan. Our success stems from the satisfaction of our employees; at our organization they are entitled to several benefits. Due to this, they have honored me by treating me like their own family, which I consider a huge achievement.

We celebrated our 12th anniversary a few months back on the 7th of May 2016. It had been a successful program and the deep love and appreciation of everyone who joined me for the special day showed how far we have actually come, by the grace and mercy of the Almighty.

What sets Athena’s Furniture and Home Décor apart from other Furniture companies?

The furniture business is more of a male-oriented world. Therefore, as a full-time mother, stepping into such a business had not been an easy expedition, especially with antique furniture. I was basically inspired through some interior design courses I had taken. This was at a time when most of my female compatriots were stepping into the boutique business. I, however, decided to put my passion for furnishing and creativity to test.

Athena’s started its journey with mesmerizing Victorian and Italian designed furniture, made locally from the finest Indian oak wood. I decided to blend ethnicity and contemporary concepts as I was inspired by elegant and sophisticated interior designs.

Athena’s is a boutique furniture shop where you will not encounter ordinary designs. Instead, each client is dealt with according to their personal taste and contentment. We also adhere to very high standards of quality and ethics. Instead of aiming for profit, we target customer satisfaction.

What have been the opportunities and challenges associated with building your own furniture business?

Athena’s Furniture and Home Décor reflects the dreams and creativity of a rather reserved housewife who was bold enough to come forward with her ideas in a male-dominated business. My initial budget was very limited and my spouse had discouraged me from taking any bank loans. He loaned me the initial capital amount, and I had to work very hard in order to pay it back.

This had been one of the most difficult challenges. I came out of this struggle with a renewed resolve which aided me significantly when dealing with my future endeavors.

Working as a female entrepreneur in a sector dominated by men was never going to be easy. The stark realities of my gender hit me when I had to face harsh criticism from my

We are currently planning to get involved in the export business as we have received offers from India and Australia through the international fairs that we regularly attend. male counterparts. Females in most cases are not cordially given the position of being the commanding head. Thus, gaining their acceptance as the Managing Director turned out to be quite challenging. However, I worked past all of this, often staying at the office late at night, sometimes till dawn, in order to prepare my designs and documents.

I could not have overcome these hurdles without the support of my family and the blessings of the Almighty. My husband was always there to both applaud my victories and criticize my mistakes. He even aided me in rectifying my mistakes. His consistent advice and ideas helped me flourish. I feel tremendous gratitude towards my father-in-law who recognized my dreams and motivated me to pursue them. His affection and support made me feel like I had always been a part of the family. My mother-in-law was there to take care of my children when I was busy running my business. If not for her, I would not have been able to make the necessary progress in my endeavors. I am grateful for my business traits as they show that I am carrying on the legacy of my father and grandfather who were both renowned individuals from Chittagong.

What are your company goals for 2016?

We recently successfully launched our Banani showroom in June. We are also looking forward to opening a new showroom in Chittagong in November. Later on, we will open a branch in Sylhet due to the huge demand from the London NRBs. Currently, we are looking for a plot in Dhanmondi so that we can open our fourth Dhaka-based showroom. We can proudly say that Athena’s

have now established itself as a renowned brand. We are currently planning to get involved in the export business as we have received offers from India and Australia through the international fairs that we regularly attend. This will be our way of contributing to the growth of the country as well as helping to improve Bangladesh's branding on the global stage.

What drove you to undertake such a challenging profession?

I was born to a family where business had been a natural instinct. My father always spoke about it, and taught us to be self-dependent. My father, Sekander Hossain Meah, took over the family business of textile, weaving, oil, rice and salt from his father then set new heights.

He was involved with the Federal Chamber of Commerce and Chittagong Chamber of Commerce. He became the president of Chittagong Club Ltd and later his honesty and passion towards work led him to become the Mayor of Chittagong. He was also a very loved MP of Chittagong.

I have always dreamt of following my father’s footsteps. Unfortunately he is not with us today as he passed away when I was 15 years old. I believe he would have been immensely proud to see me in this position.

Another inspirational person is my father-in-law, the renowned Anwar Hossain who is the Chairman of Anwar Group of Industries.

He is one of the most inspiring businessmen I know. His immense support and guidance was also instrumental in helping me set up and establish my business.

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Photo Essay

CSR

Fostering the

The RSF Model School & College in Kaludum Village.

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The Rural Service (RSF) Model School and College is a non-profit organization by Rahimafrooz Group. Established in 2008, the school provides residential and educational provisions for under privileged children.

Located in the Kaludum Village of the Shajahanpur Upzila of Bogra, the school encompasses 16 bighas with mango groves and ponds that make it a scenic facility for the 301 students in attendance. Compromising of 5 floors, the school utilizes the latest technology to teach required subjects such as science and math along moral training and extracurricular activity. The school is an excellent example of how CSR can be implemented to create everlasting change.

Future Children reading in one of the many classrooms.

Niaz Rahim, Group Director of Rahimafrooz Ltd., attending the morning assembly.

The children stand in organized manner for the morning assembly.

An aerial view of the school’s compound.

Students marching across the courtyard.

Distribution of books in accordance to the academic syllabus.

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Advertorial

ASSURE GROUP

UPHOLDING THE REPUTATION Home is where the heart is and Assure Group strives to create the perfect space for everyone. With the noble motto "Home for Peace" Assure is now a well-established, trusted and branded name in real estate business in Bangladesh.

Their properties feature an aesthetic and architecturally innovative housing built with quality materials and modern fitting. At Assure, they value the significance of one’s home in their life.

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Since their beginning in 2007, Assure has delivered a large number of apartments with modern facilities and outstanding architectural designs in Dhaka.

In the real estate industry Assure, being a member of REHAB, is making vital contributions in this sector to uphold its reputation. For this corporate and social commitment Assure has become one of the most reliable real estate companies within short

period.

Assure is now looking to be expand its wings into the agro-based industry to create greater employment opportunities for the country’s labor force. Their aim is to contribute to the national economy for its greater development and progress.

When striving to create flourishing relationships with happy clients, innovation is one of the key components of Assure Group. The company has

created structures that are architecturally conscious of the ever growing and dense city. This ideology extends to the necessity of becoming a greener capital. Assure Group has incorporated a green feature throughout all of their new buildings. They believe that it is every individual’s and company’s responsibility to maintain the quality their environment for the cleaner future.

TRAVEL

In the Land of the Pharaohs

Egypt is one of those places that are on most travel bucket lists especially because pop culture is littered with references to Egyptian history and mythology. For a location so hyped, one might have suspicions that it can be underwhelming once you get there. However, I can assure you that it is not. Egypt has far more to offer than its common impression. It would almost be a crime to not spend at least 10 days there. Travelers should keep in mind that it is a desert country so choose your season wisely.

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SAADAT WORLDWIDE

Words & Photographs

By Saadat Chowdhury

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HOW TO GET THERE All major Middle-Eastern airlines like Etihad, Qatar, and Emirates fly from Dhaka to Cairo, so you have your set of options. One thing to consider is the total duration of the flight, which can range from 10 to 13 hours (with the layover at the airline’s hub included).

THE PYRAMID COMPLEX IN GIZA An hour away from Cairo is Giza, famed for its monumental pyramids. Upon reaching the pyramids and seeing them up close, you cannot help but feel dwarfed by their magnitude and magnificence. Standing in from of the last survivor of the ancient Seven Wonders of the World is a truly surreal experience; witnessing their grandeur first-hand will definitely leave you speechless.

The best way to see the pyramids is to take a camel ride. The camel, guided by its owner, will take you around the desert that will give you a brilliant view of the pyramids – perfect for a photo op.

The Pyramid Complex comprises:

CAIRO The capital city is divided into Islamic Cairo and New Cairo, the latter being built to alleviate congestion in downtown Cairo. You can drive around the city for half a day to see the mosques and monuments in Islamic Cairo, and then spend the remaining half at the Museum of Cairo to see the treasure trove they have on display such as artifacts from the tombs of Tutankhamun, Akhenaten, and Hatshepsut, among others. Close to the museum, one can also visit the Tahrir Square (meaning Liberation Square), where the Arab Spring movement took place. The locals often jest that if you come to the square, you instantly become national news.

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• 3 large pyramids – one for Pharaoh Khufu; one for Khufu’s son and successor, Khafre; and one for Khafre’s son and successor, Menkaure. Khufu’s Pyramid is the largest of all and is known as the Great Pyramid of Giza.

• 3 smaller pyramids are for Khufu's wives.

• The Great Sphinx of Giza – with the body of a lion and the head of a human.

This mythical being is believed to have been the “Guardian of the Pyramids”.

The excitement and awe from your observations will stick with you throughout the entire day and well into the night when there is a light show with narrations. However, like myself, if you stay for the narration, you might be thoroughly underwhelmed. Since it's just a guy with an American accent reading off an encyclopaedia entry, no one will blame you for skipping it.

Word of advice at this point: In Egypt, particularly in Giza, you will have people approach you – regardless of your gender – and be all over you (quite literally), offering their assistance. No reason to be alarmed, though. In most cases, they are just vendors pushing their products and the best way to deal with the situation is to not react. Just smile and walk away.

NILE CRUISE A tour of Egypt is incomplete without the Nile Cruise, since Egypt is, after all, the “Gift of the Nile”. The cruise business is highly competitive and as such, you will find 5-star cruises with luxurious cabins to be quite affordable. Take the 3-day cruise because it covers a lot of ground with the added benefit of trying out Egyptian cuisine while enjoying the gala nights with belly and Tanura dances.

The vendors will even find you in the middle of the Nile and row towards you on small boats, selling mostly bedcovers. They will throw their goods on the deck of the ship. You can either throw them back or keep them and throw some money back.

The cruise is simultaneously intriguing and relaxing; you get to sit back in the comfort of the cruise and enjoy the beautiful sceneries as the ship sails to Aswan and Luxor in South Egypt.

THE TEMPLES IN SOUTH EGYPT If the size of the Pyramids of Giza leaves you awestruck, the brilliance of the temples in South Egypt will leave you overwhelmed.

At Aswan, there are two major temples – Temple of Kom Ombo (dedicated to the Crocodile God, Sebek, and the Falcon God, Horus) and Philae Temple (dedicated to the Goddess Isis). The Philae Temple was originally on Philae Island, but the island was flooded and the temple started to erode. Thankfully, UNESCO stepped in and restored the entire temple piece-by-piece on Agilkia Island.

Luxor City is separated by the Nile. On the East Bank are the two major temples – Karnak Temple and Luxor Temple, both among the largest and the grandest religious buildings ever made, and dedicated to the triad – Amun Ra (Sun God), his wife Mut, and their son Khonsu. An avenue of sphinxes connects the two temples because it was believed that during an annual religious festival called Opet, the cult statues of the triad would travel from Karnak to Luxor Temple.

On the West Bank, is the Valley of the Kings, where 63 Pharaohs including Tutankhamun, were buried. Although it is definitely among the most popular tourist destinations, it would be advisable to be wary of the heat as my excursion in October almost left me with a heat stroke.

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Food and Beverage •

ALEXANDRIA

This beautiful city founded by Alexander the Great was the capital of Greco-Roman Egypt. Back in the day, Alexandria was a melting pot for different cultures and a giant storehouse of knowledge. The city has evolved over the years but what's admirable about its evolution is that it has done so while adhering its ancient ideals.

The newly built Library of Alexandria, also known as Bibliotheca Alexandrina, is spectacular and should not be missed.

You can cover all the tourist destinations in one day, but most people choose to extend their stay in this city by the Mediterranean Sea with a laidback attitude.

Start at the Corniche – a waterfront promenade running along the Mediterranean Sea. At one end of the Corniche is the serene Montaza Palace and royal gardens, built by King Fuad I as his summer palace, and at the other end is the Citadel of Qaitbay, a 15th century defensive fortress built on the exact site of another one of the ancient Seven Wonders – the Lighthouse of Alexandria.

If time permits, you can also visit the Pompey’s Pillar and the Roman Amphitheatre of Alexandria; both are important architectural feats of the Roman Empire.

Avoid the food at Giza at all costs. It is expensive and nothing to write home about.

• The fresh seafood at the restaurants on the Corniche in Alexandria is marvelous.

• Karkadé, tea or punch made with hibiscus, is just phenomenal and should not be missed. I lived and breathed this wonderful drink during my trip. I even brought some back home.

• Mezze is a platter of small dishes served with drinks. They range from a variety of ingredients like seafood, salads, tahini, eggs, grilled octopus, hummus, fava beans and fried vegetables among a score of other things.

ACCOMMODATION

Hotels in both Cairo and Alexandria can be pricey. Getting around Cairo can be problematic due to the traffic and reckless driving which might remind you of Dhaka. The best solution is to stay in the city center, that way everything is kind of close to you.

Do’s

• Egypt is a country where you need to have a well-planned itinerary. There is so much to see and so much to take in; chances are that you might miss some key areas without proper planning. I would recommend using EmoToursEgypt.com. They offer great plans at affordable prices.

• Whether you book through Emo Tours or not, try to at least have a guided tour. Egypt is not ideal for backpacking.

• Tips are expected and will make things easier.

• Stay vigilant regarding your belongings.

• Stay hydrated and carry sunscreen if you are planning on going during summer.

SHOPPING

• In the Islamic district of Cairo, there is Khan el-Khalili Bazar – recommended for shopping. Fair warning: You will feel like buying every souvenir that you come across – sarcophagi, scarabs, obelisks, sphinxes, and pyramids.

Might be hard to resist but try not to spend all your cash on souvenirs.

• Things you should look out for are high-quality rugs/carpets, semi-precious stones, and silver trinkets.

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Don’ts Saadat Chowdhury is an explorer, entrepreneur, and educator. He is the CEO of Saadat C. Ventures, Chairperson of Zurhem Limited, and can be reached at szadat@hotmail.com.

• Photography is not allowed everywhere, particularly at Cairo Museum and Valley of the Kings.

• Do not over-tip; 5 Egyptian pounds ($0.5) should be enough in most cases.

Sponsored Article

G R E E N D E LT A INSURANCE

Solutions at your Fingertips

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It is not very often that we see a big corporate venture emphasizing the social issues pertaining to the societal ecosystem they operate in. Meet Green Delta Insurance Company Limited (GDIC) – the largest and leading “AAA” rated non-life insurance company in Bangladesh serving with excellence for the past three decades. GDIC is known as a top-notch insurance company and its success is attributed to its innovative product range, customer-centricity and staying loyal to its core values.

With all its accolades and success, Green Delta never forgets the people who support it.

This is evident from the numerous innovative, customized products they have initiated over the years to cater to the needs of different segments of the society.

GDIC have specially designed products for

garment workers – ‘Shudin’, micro-health insurance for rural – ‘Niramoy’, insurance for migrant workers – ‘Probashi’ and much more.

The flagship product of Green Delta is Nibedita – the first ever comprehensive insurance scheme for women in South Asia.

This was designed to ensure women’s economic security and provide them a platform to be socially and economically empowered.

Nibedita can be availed by any Bangladeshi women aged between 14 and 65 years. They can get a coverage of Tk 100,000 to Tk 1,000,000 for a minimum annual premium of Tk 580 only. What makes Nibedita Unique is that besides other insurance benefits, it provides trauma allowances for the victims of rape, road bully, acid attacks and other

discriminatory acts.

Farzana Chowdhury, Managing Director and CEO of Green Delta Insurance Company, was honored at the UN Global Compact Leaders’ Summit 2016 held in New York in June as one of 10 Local Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Pioneers for her efforts in promoting gender equality in Bangladesh that aligns with SDG 5through Nibedita.

In order to create a one-stop service solution platform for women in Bangladesh, Green Delta have recently launched a mobile application called ‘Nibedita Mobile App’ for the Nibedita policyholders. The event titled ‘Nibedita App Launch and Local SDG Celebration’ was held on the 8th October 2016 at the Le Méridien Dhaka. The Honorable Speaker of the Parliament, Dr. Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury

MP, graced the occasion as the Chief Guest and officially launched the app. She congratulated Green Delta on such a noble initiative to work for women and also felicitated Green Delta’s Managing Director & CEO Farzana Chowdhury ACII (UK) for being a Local SDG Pioneer by the United Nations Global Compact. The Honorable Speaker also hailed Farzana as a source of inspiration to the millions of women in Bangladesh who wants to break the socio-economic barriers and succeed in their respective endeavors. She expressed her optimism on the role Nibedita can play in ensuring women‘s well-being.

The Special Guest, Mr. Zunaid Ahmed Palak MP, Honorable State Minister, ICT Division, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, expressed his delight in the app launch and hoped that Green Delta can be a role model for the private sector to come forward and play a pivotal role along with the Government to realize the dream of a Digital Bangladesh. The State Minister invited Green Delta to be their partner in Government’s initiatives to promote the ICT sector to improve lives. He assured his full support for Green Delta’s aspirations to help establish

gender equality and women empowerment in Bangladesh.

Ambassador of the US Embassy Dhaka, Her Excellency, Mercia Bernicat, and Former Bangladesh Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Dr. A K Abdul Momen, were also present as the guests of honor.

The unique feature of Nibedita App is the Panic Button. When in danger, any woman can press the panic button and at will create a loud siren like sound and also simultaneously send a distress SMS with geo-location to her relatives / nearest ones (provided during app registration), the Green Delta Head office and the security service provider, who will mobilize its rescue team to the spot within 15-30 minutes. Besides security, this app will also give women access to better health, capacity building, lifestyle, financial services and other value added services. For this, Green Delta has partnered with various service providers to give Nibedita policyholders special offers and fast-track services. Some of our partners include EBL, IDLC, Elite Force, Ghurbo.com, Persona, Bagdoom.com, Dhaka Ahsania Mission, Agora, Green Delta Securities Limited, Green Delta Capital Limited, Professional Advancement Limited and GD Assist Ltd. Farzana Chowdhury ACII (UK), hopes that by empowering women – who constitute more than 52% of the population - Nibedita can play a pivotal role in the overall socio-economic development of Bangladesh.

Like the great Napoleon once said “Give me a good mother, I will give you a good Nation”, Nibedita is aspiring to play a pivotal role in the national development of Bangladesh by enriching the lives of millions of women across the country with the slogan – “Nibedita is every woman’s partner”.

www.ibtbd.net

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Corporate Grooming

BEYOND THE BUSINESS

Dress for Success

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Jacket, Blazer, Vest & Shirt

by Zurhem Shoes, Wallet & Belt by Apex Sunglasses by Fashion Optics www.ibtbd.net

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IBT gadget

SAMSUNG GALAXY J7 PRIME

An Impeccable Phone for an Executive The Samsung Galaxy J7 Prime is currently one of the most popular smartphone handsets available in the market and the perfect handset for you if you are a smart working individual.

Refined Design and Display The Samsung Galaxy J7 Prime has a stylish metal unibody with curved back. The back panel has a brushed metal finish to further enhance the elegant design. All of this comes in an ergonomic, slim and sleek design. The smartphone bears a 5.5-inch full-HD (1080x1920 pixels) IPS display with 2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass 4 that delivers excellent contrast ratio for deeper and more vivid colors whilst also giving customers an enhanced range of colors for a more life-like viewing experience.

Enhanced Performance The Galaxy J7 Prime has an upgraded Exynos 1.6 GHz Octa Core processor. It has an upgraded 3 GB RAM for smoother and seamless multitasking. The smartphone comes with 16GB of inbuilt storage that's expandable via microSD card (up to 256GB).

The battery backup has been expanded on the Galaxy J7 Prime sporting an impressive 3,300 mAh. The device will have the latest Android Marshmallow out of the box. The Galaxy J7 Prime also has S Bike Mode, a dedicated bike mode that let consumers ‘ride tension free’ while encouraging responsible riding.

Smart Camera with Superior Low Light Imaging The Galaxy J7 Prime comes with an improved 13-megapixel rear camera with an f/1.9 aperture and LED flash that deliver brighter images in low light conditions. It also features an 8-megapixel front camera with an f/1.9 aperture to cater the needs of selfie enthusiasts to capture high quality photos.

Advanced Security The Samsung Galaxy J7 Prime is the first handset to have a fingerprint sensor from the J series. The fingerprint sensor on the home button enhances the security and the privacy of the device. Moreover, a newer version of this handset will be introduced with the S-security option for more secured communication.

The Galaxy J7 Prime also has “S Bike Mode”. This is a dedicated bike mode which allows bikers to safely ride their motorcycles.

This brand new edition Galaxy J7 Prime is currently available in the market in two different colors, golden and black. Customers can avail this handset with Tk 23,900 and 0% interest with 6 month EMI facility.

Besides, with the Samsung Houseful offer, on the purchase of Samsung Galaxy smartphones and tablets, you have the chance to win a Samsung Home Appliance set which includes 40" Full HD Flat TV, Washing Machine, Refrigerator, Air Conditioner and Home Theater.

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Special Event

The third edition of Digital Marketing Summit 2016 was held on the 8th of October at Le Meridien Hotel Dhaka, with the theme “Demystifying Digital Marketing”. The day long summit was conducted with five keynote sessions of globally recognized digital marketing experts, two case study presentations, one interactive panel discussion, four break-out sessions and digital expositions of different brands. An initiative of Bangladesh Brand Forum (BBF), DMS 2016 was presented

by HUAWEI and powered by SSD – Tech and was organized in association with The Daily Star.

The Summit brought leading and global industry professionals, decision-makers and thought leaders under one roof to exchange and share their experiences about all aspects of digital marketing. The keynote speakers were – Fergus O’Hare, Director of Facebook Creative Shop for APAC; Md. Mehedi Reza, Product Operations Manager, Alibaba Group; Suresh Ramaswamy, Digital Lead Regional Director, SEA, Grey Group; Hemant Mehta, Senior Vice President, Media & Retail Businesses, IMRB and Monirul Kabir, CIO, Spider Digital Innovations.

Two successful case studies were presented by Strategeek Digital and Magnito Digital. One insightful panel discussion, focusing on ‘Creating meaningful consumer engagement through digital marketing’ was moderated by Hasan Mehdi, CEO, SSD-Tech, along with 5 more panel members – Syed Tanzim Rezwan, Marketing Director, Reckitt Benckiser Bangladesh; Monirul Kabir, CIO, Spider Digital Innovations; Solaiman Sukhon, Head of Marketing, Aamra Networks; Redwan Hafiz, Co-founder and the People’s Champ, Analyzen Bangladesh

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The Digital Direction DIGITAL MARKETING SUMMIT 2016

By Ashfaque Zaman and Rubab Nayeem Khan

and Sanjid Hossain, Head of Digital Services, Mobireach.

To strengthen ground-level expertise for digital marketing practitioners, the summit held 4 breakout sessions.

These specialized breakout sessions were conducted by expert digital marketers from Google, Alibaba, WebAble, and SSD-Tech, who focused on different analytical aspects of digital marketing.

Digital Marketing Summit 2016 was presented by Huawei and powered by SSD-Tech.

The summit was initiated in association with The Daily Star and also supported by – Event Partner Le Meriedien, Knowledge Partner MSB (Marketing Society of Bangladesh), IT Partner Aamra Networks, PR Partner Masthead PR, and Social Media Partner WebAble.

and cold, so we delivered the advertisement around 1 am or 3 am in the morning because we knew people would be awake to see the ad for Zzzquil. It wouldn’t have been as effective had we delivered it in the afternoon.

In a survey of 3700 marketers, conducted

by Media Examiner for Forbes, it was found that only 45% felt that their efforts on Facebook were working.

How can you raise the efficacy for this?

Fergus O’ Hare Director of Creative Shop Facebook APAC

Q

When you’re specializing in traditional advertising, the work is great; however, it isn’t targeted towards the right people. At Facebook, you get to do quality work. You need to understand the people you’re talking to and in order to do that, you need to build your work based on human insights. The beauty of Facebook is that you can target without advertising; hence you can take the insight that resonates with a certain person. There are 1.7 billion newsfeeds on Facebook and every individual’s newsfeed is completely different, so the messages and advertisements that are in there should be meaningful and relevant to them. With cross-campaigns, we build seven to eight pieces of creative ideas for the same products that have a slightly different insight for that target market; so if it were a particular product we could find insight for age group, geographical location, gender as well as ethnicity. As for being timely, it’s about seeing an ad at the right time. We had a product named Zzzquil which helps cure insomnia

Did you know?

There are 1.7 billion newsfeeds on Facebook

What are the key elements that help create a hub for business on Facebook?

To make the advertising more effective, it has to be targeted well, so we’re always helping marketers target better, we’re also making sure people aren’t just putting up television content on Facebook; rather they are building the content that serves a purpose for the site. When the content is signed off, we add subtitles and make it mobile-ready. Whatever marketers are trying to sell in an advertisement, we put it up front so that the message is delivered quicker. So we’re working towards making marketers and clients more effective by generating content that has a target audience and is also mobile-ready.

In Facebook’s case, what marketing strategies do you incorporate in order to increase consumer engagement?

We call it thumb-stopping creative; since people are scrolling through Facebook quickly you have to make a content that draws their attention immediately. It has to be something that’s highly targeted and timely in order to successfully engage the audience.

Suresh Ramaswamy

Digital Lead Regional Director, SEA, Grey Group

Q

You stated that digital marketing is more than just aesthetics, digital copies, and shiny objects. What are the key features of digital content?

The content is in the same format that you would traditionally have; it encompasses text, visual and video.

However, the way it is crafted is emphasized more so than the actual type of content. We look at the content such as a search, it is mostly text based. A web page or banner is mostly text and visual based and finally, video is a multimedia experience. We are at the preliminary stage of the virtual reality aspect that is being used by very few brands and being done for experimentation. One must look towards innovation and angles that have not been explored because there is so much content being thrown out there.

What are the challenges of applying the concept of the craft in South Asia?

The primary challenge is the scope. It starts with pursuing and understanding the primary goal of a www.ibtbd.net

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particular medium. You must ask yourself what can be used tactically or as a compliment. The people who are providing these services must show the efficacy for this. If you create an idea, what is the right medium to land it or execute it? From my experience throughout South Asia, we are doing lip service to digital media. There must be an evolved skill set from the agencies and a leap of faith. A vast majority tends to gravitate towards the methodology that has worked before; they want to be safe. You have to take these small steps and breakthroughs and raise the level of interest and willingness to do so.

Could you site a company that is using digital marketing innovatively?

Companies such as Unilever are doing well in this regard. This would be more effective if the second and third top ranking brands would adopt the creativity to enhance the mileage out of the media rather than having to shout with the media expense that you have.

The initiative by these companies would allow for the pursuit of creative content. Ikea has been doing a great job in SEA. It has seen rapid growth because each idea is unique, therefore becoming something that you would like to share. It creates a feeling that makes anyone think that they should have done it.

You emphasize the ideology that great creativity drives disproportional business, an unconventional saying. Could you elaborate upon that?

The entire point is that a company will spend on marketing. If you want that expenditure to come back as returns, you must understand breaking through to the crowd is a necessity in a crowded media space. It is a wasted effort if you spend money and it is not utilized. We have always known this but there has always been the need for data to solidify and substantiate it. The GUN report talks about creativity while other FE reports expand upon effectiveness.

There are a few practitioners who are trying to take these two ideas and show the relationship. Now you cannot take into account every factor; given all these isolations, you can clearly witness that a creative idea will create elevated attention.

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Hemant Mehta

Senior Vice President Media & Retail Businesses, IMRB

Q

Measuring is said to be the most important part of marketing. Could you elaborate on this idea?

As human beings, we have a history of measuring the caliber of anything significant and marketing is no different. It is an investment and an expense; you need measurement to see what is working and what is not. This is true in every aspect of life. Every time you measure something, you look for a definite result that allows you to progress. For instance in media, you can measure the number of reads of an article or the views of a video.

It has always driven the industry and it drives growth by deciphering what is efficient.

Through digital media, the minute you start to measure, you specify the number, the key demographic and target group in a large, accurate and rapid manner. Through digital media, you can also track consistent change.

How have content marketing, social media marketing, and ad retargeting changed how you reach an audience?

Digital media has completely transformed the mannerism in

which you reach an audience.

Previously, a company would say that he might be targeting upper-middle-class housewives.

Now we look for specification such as attire preference, lifestyle and other psychographics. We now incorporate psychographic and demographic with the particular trend of social media uses (text, Email, Twitter, Facebook) into consideration. There is so much data available and it has profoundly changed how we are defining the consumer. It is no longer one on one; if you look at traditional television or print, you’d put out an ad with the hope that it reaches a few. There is instant reaction today. If a company does something wrong, there is a vociferous and vocal consumer out there who is going to scrutinize them. In response, they can retarget and get feedback instantly.

Nielson recently reported that 83% of consumers take recommendations from friends and family, a phenomenon that shows the power has shifted to the consumer. How do you target or approach this trend?

You have to be absolutely honest and instantaneously react. You have so many live feeds from various mediums that send your feedback and you have to able to react with an efficient team in your command center. This team must send a creative response that engages the customer and they must also know how to handle criticism or take action.

A vast number of crises are not happening on the ground but in the digital space; managing your integrity in the digital space is just as important as managing quality. Today’s consumer is very empowered and evolved and their voice needs to be leveraged as a tool.

You can use this data to communicate, manage your reputation and poach new clients to use your product.

Tech

GOOGLE FLAGSHIP PHONE

Redefining the Pixel

By Abhijit Asad

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ne of the greatest things about Android is also one of the worst - the fact that it is free, infinitely adaptable and absolutely ruinable. And ruin is what happens to it at the hand of a great many OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers), who see no better way to customize an elegant and flexible operating system into a sluggish platform burdened down with new and poorly optimized codes and apps. Although some OEMs (e.g. Motorola) are exceptions to this trend, it’s pretty rare to find

Google has a new iPhone-killing flagship

Android on a phone or tablet in its sleek vanilla form.

Google’s Nexus range of phones was first brought about in an attempt to combat this growing problem. Running a pure distribution of Android, the Nexus phones were built by third-party manufacturers, under the supervision of Google, and they achieved varying levels of success over the years. After the lukewarm response to the first two Nexus phones, the Samsung-built Galaxy Nexus was the first Nexus phone to really catch on, and the devices which followed were also very well-received. The last Nexus phone, the Huawei-built 6P, was a stunner of a phone; with its top-notch specs and a relatively modest price tag, it served as the perfect swansong to its bloodline.

With the new Pixel series of flagship phones, Google

Google is so hell-bent on stealing away iPhone users that every Pixel phone comes with a special cable that lets you migrate the personal contents of your iPhone (contacts, messages, photos etc.) to the Pixel with just a few taps.

seems to be taking a different direction, not entirely unlike one taken by long-time rival Apple. While it’s still manufactured by a third-party OEM (this time, it’s HTC), every single detail of the phone is a directly Google-designed feature, with no input from the manufacturer. Unlike the Nexus series, where Google provided a basic set of guidelines and let the designated OEM use them to create their own Nexus design, the Pixel bears Google’s personal touch on every aspect of it.

The similarities to iPhones don’t end there. Not only is the Pixel series criminally overpriced (starting from

$649), but it also seems to be packing a large number of astounding features which easily rival or eclipse those of contemporary iPhones, and are not readily available on contemporary Android devices from other OEMs, To define the Pixel in a single sentence - it’s a phone which looks like an iPhone, feels like an iPhone, priced like an iPhone, is as fast as (or faster than) an iPhone, and, despite running the purest form of the latest version of Android (7.0 Nougat), still manages to feel like an iPhone somehow. To a diehard Android fan like me, it’s a pretty major turnoff that way, but from a neutral perspective, it’s pretty easy to see how it would appeal to existing iPhone users and even motivate them to migrate to this gorgeous phone. In fact, Google is so hell-bent on stealing away iPhone users that every Pixel phone comes with a special cable that lets you migrate the personal contents of your iPhone (contacts, messages, photos etc.) to the Pixel with just a few taps. This is a pretty big incentive for iPhone users, who are often reluctant to move to Android because of the difficult switching process.

Bringing the users over is only half the story though, but not to worry - the Pixel has plenty of features to ensure that the converted iOS devotee stays aboard and enjoys it too. For starters, it comes in two sizes, a smaller 5” standard edition (with a 1080p display) and a larger 5.5” XL edition (with a 1440p display), ensuring familiarity for everyone.

However, the first thing

which had everyone talking right out of the box is its astounding camera performance. To put it in a nutshell, it is extremely difficult to take a photo with the Pixel which doesn’t look good right away. The colors are perfectly accentuated, and the devices’ low-light performance is enough to make any mobile phone shutterbug consider switching.

Google is also sparing no attempt to make the Pixel experience a premium one, and every Pixel user gets unlimited Google Drive storage right away for his/her precious collection of photos and videos - of which there is likely to be a ton, given how the camera can motivate even the least camera-savvy of all to snap away like a pimply teenager with a new selfie stick.

Android 7.0 Nougat is the most refined version of Android to date, and it’s safe to say that the interface has never felt smoother. Still bearing the flat cues of Material Design which were introduced in the 5.0 Lollipop era, Nougat’s appearance, animations and user experience is smooth and tasteful, and its simple layout is not likely to alienate even the most non-techie user. The super-intelligent Google Assistant is an integral part of the Nougat experience on the Pixel, and it’s always silently lurking in the background, waiting for you to say “OK Google” before jumping into action. You can ask the Assistant questions which range from simple to moderately complex, and even order it to complete certain tasks such as setting alarms and

calendar events or even calling your contacts. While it’s still not entirely perfect, it shows immense promise and manages to easily outclass Apple’s Siri.

Given the large and high-resolution screens of the Pixel devices, battery life should have been a major issue, but along with the excellent optimization of the new version of Android, the batteries of the Pixel phones are also packing some respectable heat. They perform quite admirably up to significantly rigorous use, offering a day of heavy use with relative ease. It also offers USB-C-based fast charging, allowing you to rapidly top up the battery with 6 hours’ worth of juice in just 15 minutes. Given the lackluster battery performance of the new iPhones, the Pixel has a considerable edge over it in this department as well.

Oh, and let’s not forget that it still comes with a 3.5 mm audio jack, which has been omitted altogether from the latest iPhones, which means your awesome headphones are still relevant and can be used with the Pixel without requiring any ridiculous dongles. However, it should be mentioned that the iPhone 7 still has an edge the Pixel isn’t waterproof, just splash-resistant. But for most users, that shouldn’t be an issue anyway.

Our final verdict. If you are looking to buy a new phone with raw cash burning a hole in your pocket, and you want to enjoy the freedom of Android combined with the simplicity of the iPhone, the Pixel is the phone to get.

Although you’ll be paying through the nose, at least you’ll have the best phone money can currently buy. www.ibtbd.net

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Advertorial

Y ou simply can’t put a price on quality and preference; the truth is that a home should reflect one's taste and aesthetic sense. It is more than just a combination of rods, cement, and bricks; your home is an extension of your personality.

When it comes to the space you dwell in every detail counts for the satisfaction of living in your idea of a perfect room or home. But there is one detail that binds it all; the walls that encompass you.

Within the four walls of each room lies different elements of your taste and preferences; your preferred tone and ambiance, the painting that you admire, the souvenirs of the places visited and the milestones of your memory lane.

Given the significance of the walls of your home, you want the best paint to express the individuality of each space without allowing the detrimental effects of humidity to deter the quality of these walls.

The dampness of walls can happen for a number of reasons, the primary reason being the humid weather. Furthermore, if there is no scope for air to escape the room, it becomes more unpleasant and suffocating. Excessive use of air conditioners leads to the trapping of air within the confinement. The pristine condition of your newly painted walls can be severely hampered as a result of moisture. It can cause the paint to peel off, create bubbles of moisture that make the wall seem uneven or ruin the finish and accent work of the wall. Moisture goes beyond the design of your walls; it can affect the health of your family. Retention of the moisture in the walls can create an undesired mold that causes diseases; it can produce allergen or asthma.

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B E R G E R PA I N T S

A Fresh SUrrounding Of course, there are a number of temporary solutions that will remedy this matter, such as opening the windows and allowing for air to circulate will facilitate circulation of fresh air which prevents the effects of dampening to impact your walls, including certain chemicals during the painting process or installing wallpapers that add an additional layer of protection.

Moreover, allowing ample amounts of light to enter each and every space prevents any remnant moistures that might be trapped in the walls.

However, this is just a temporary solution. If a holistic and permanent solution is what you desire, the emulsion paints at Berger are the ideal solutions. These paints are created to prevent moisture from the wall and allow you to enjoy the space that you treasure for years to come.

Monjurul Haque

F & B Sector

Raising the Bar BARCODE

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ith the darkness of the evenings and the unpredictability of the rain, Chittagong is a unique city. It is centered around a picturesque mountain on the backdrops. The ever growing port city of the nation has now adopted the “hang out” culture that entails a trip to popular eateries and restaurants; an activity previously reserved for the affluent, it has evolved to become a leisure activity for the masses.

In the endeavor to progress as a metropolitan city, the Chittagong scene has been introduced to Bardcode Coffee Shop; a quaint café that embodies the Bengali culture for the global citizen. Upon entering, one will hear the classics of Hemanto along with the latest hipster bands from Brooklyn. The tunes alone welcome both locals and foreigners to share a comfortable space together.

The café has been touted as one of the location to find both variety and wallet friendly food.

From chicken steak meals, to salad, pastas and shwarmas, it caters to those of all tastes and ages. Satiate your thirst during the incredible meal with the classic mint lemonade, ending the meal experience with a dessert truly worth dying for. Perfecting it all, Barcode has expanded to the Chittagong Independent University (CIU) with the youth noting its distinguished environment and quality meals.

The visionary behind this Chittagong staple is Monjurul Haque. He draws his inspiration from his time in Singapore from 1996 to 2001.

By Rokeya Zaman

Starting with the first location in Halishar, Barcode currently has five locations throughout the city and has recently opened in Dhaka. Monjurul recalls taking the risk of venturing outside of the family business and into the food industry. However, his endeavors have paid off given the success of the café.

Monjurul believed in creating a space that was reminiscent of the spaces in Singapore when he stepped into the unknown business. “I wanted an environment in which customers could enjoy their time with both friends and family. It needed to be a space that had a welcoming interior and a holistic eating experience.” He designed the interiors to attract a younger crowd and enhances this with a musical experience. Monjurul elaborates, “We play Bangla and English music from throughout the decades so everyone can recognize their favorite hits.

Furthermore, we arrange musical programs occasionally so that they have an enjoyable space to hang out.” These very elements have attracted diverse group of customers.

Understanding that the food habits of Bangladeshis are changing, Monjurul has hired a professional chef from Dhaka. “With the introduction of fast food, the local customer has become more inclined towards pizzas and burgers. Large franchises have changed the variety of the local palette by introducing them to international foods.”

The port city of Chittagong is a one-kind metropolis for the city. Barcode Café is the lighthouse that is ushering in the trending culture of enjoying a meal in a cozy environment.

In association with

9th SAES

Materializing Tomorrow’s Dream Today

REIMAGINING SOUTH ASIA

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he South Asia Economic Summit (SAES) was conceived as a platform to discuss and debate on the issues perceived as critical to advancing the causes of deepening regional cooperation and integration in South Asia.

Five leading think tanks of the subcontinent took the initiative in 2008 to organize the SAES. There were: Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), Bangladesh; Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka (IPS); Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), India; Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Pakistan; and South Asia Watch on Trade, Economics, and Environment (SAWTEE), Nepal. It is hoped that initiatives such as the SAES will help to promote regional cooperation and integration and re-visualize a prosperous, sustainable and equitable South Asia in 2030. Around 100 delegates from Bangladesh and 70 delegates from other SAARC countries participated in this year’s summit. The tenth SAES will be held in Nepal in mid of 2017.

With the theme, “Reimagining South Asia in 2030’’, the two day summit was inaugurated by the President of Bangladesh, M Abdul Hamid, on 15th October. The summit ended with a clarion call by the Speaker of Bangladesh Parliament and Chairperson of the Executive Committee of the

Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, Dr. Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury, MP on 16th October.

The two-day session focused on discussing the political leadership in South Asia, the sustainable transformation of the South Asian economy by 2030 and its possible pathways, SDG Implementation challenges in the region and the role of Global partnerships, change agents for an inclusive, just and peaceful society in South Asia, etc. The nine parallel sessions were Achieving Sustainable Energy For All in South Asia: Modalities of Cooperation; Promoting South Asian Identity; Financing Development in South Asia: Avenues and Institutional Arrangements; Addressing the climate change in South Asia: Cross Broader Initiatives; Reducing Inequality in South Asia: Critical issues and Policy Choices; Fostering Connectivity and Economic integration in South Asia: Role of Private Sector; Promoting sustainable industrialization: Opportunities for Job creation and income generation; Building accountable and inclusive institutions in South Asia; Deepening an Inclusive South Asian Integration through Gender – Sensitive Trade Policies, etc.

Word of Mouth

HAPPENING

CCCI President Mahbubul Alam met the delegates from the Kuwait Chamber of Commerce & Industry

The 3rd executive board meeting of the Foundation for Learning, Teaching, and Research (fLTR) was held on at Green University of Bangladesh.

A three-day Twin Expos titled `Interior-Exterior International Expo-2016’ and `Bangladesh Lighting Expo-2016’ was held in October to create a bridge between buyers and manufacturers.

Robi - 10 Minute School has recently won the BRAC Manthan Digital Innovation Award 2016 for their outstanding contribution in eliminating the economic and geographic barriers for access to quality education. As part of Robi’s Corporate Responsibility (CR) initiative, the company is supporting the online education platform “10 Minute School”

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Honorable Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, inaugurated the Digital Training Bus project for Sustainable Women Development through ICT.

Danish Pharmaceutical Novo Nordisk in collaboration with the Diabetic Association of Bangladesh announced the Captain of Bangladesh Cricket Team Mashrafe Bin Mortaza as brand ambassador for the disease awareness campaign 'Changing Diabetes'

Bangladesh Bank yesterday honored 26 remitters, 5 bond investors, and 4 exchange houses with the Bangladesh Bank Remittance Award for the year 2015. The Bangladesh Bank Remittance Award was organized by the Financial Inclusion department of Bangladesh Bank at the Bangla Academy in the capital.

“Expatriates and their hard-working money are definitely lifting the country’s economic condition. When we formed the government, our remittance was 4 to 5 billion and now it’s almost 32 billion,” said Minister of Finance Abul Maal Abdul Muhith who was present as the chief guest

Dove created a short film, “How Old Are You?” to inspire women to celebrate their beauty at every age. The film shows girls proudly stating their age while women avoiding the question

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Rise Above All–A Tale of Game Changers

JCI Dhaka Cosmopolitan General Assembly Meeting The 2016 General Assembly of JCI Dhaka Cosmopolitan was held recently at the Way Dhaka Hotel in Dhaka. During the program, the members held discussions regarding the various activities the Local Organization had engaged in throughout the year. Furthermore, the plans of action for the year 2017 were also discussed and the local officers who would run the organization in 2017 were elected.

2016 Local President, Arman A. Khan, provided a detailed presentation about the organization's activities in 2016, while 2017 Local President Elect, Shahedul Azam, shared the plans that he and his team will carry out during the coming year.

JCI Bangladesh 2016 National President.

Shakawat Hossain Mamun, National Governing Board Members, Past National Presidents, members of the organization and other distinguished guests were also present in the program.

The Don Sumdany Facilitation and Consultancy brings their latest event “Rise Above All – A Tale of Game Changers”, presented by Sailor (by Epyllion Group). The event is powered by Cooper’s Bakery and co-sponsored by Shwapno and Symphony. The event is to be held on November 18th, at the Krishibid Institution Bangladesh - KIB. It is a daylong speaking session where esteemed experts from diversified fields will join forces to share their journey to the top, their ups and downs, inspiration and aspiration of becoming a game changer in their distinguished fields. The event aims to bring renowned experts from the field of business, entertainment, music and sports. It is a golden opportunity to know their success and failure stories, how they become what they are now, and what it takes to be extraordinary amidst the ordinary. ICE Business Times will be the magazine partner of the event along with other media partners such as GTV, Dhaka Tribune, bdbews24.com, United News of Bangladesh, Bangla Tribune, ColoursFM 101.6, Vertical Horizon and Bangladesh Organization of Learning & Development (BOLD).

For details visit: www.facebook.com/DonSumdany

The Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of Bangladesh (ICMAB) organized a grand gala program for the distribution of awards among 52 enterprises covering different sectors including banks, non-banking financial institutions, non-life insurance, pharmaceuticals, power, multinational and special categories, etc. in recognition of this best culture of corporate governance .

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Capital Market BOURSE UPDATE

Top Ten Companies by Turnover Value for this fortnight September 16-30, 2016) Sl. No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Name of the Securities

Category

The ACME Laboratories Limited Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited Square Pharmaceuticals Ltd. LankaBangla Finance Ltd. Lafarge Surma Cement Ltd. Yeakin Polymer Limited MJL Bangladesh Limited Shahjibazar Power Co. Ltd. Singer Bangladesh Ltd. Bangladesh Shipping Corporation

N A A A A N A A A A

Value in Tk. mn

Volume in Nos.

1,604.65 1,501.01 1,481.25 1,457.13 1,331.79 1,265.25 1,231.58 1,228.86 1,170.05 1,085.63

% of total Value

14,840,974 12,290,276 5,515,592 45,939,981 16,587,791 33,220,276 10,806,111 7,278,356 6,054,684 2,278,123

2.71 2.54 2.50 2.46 2.25 2.14 2.08 2.08 1.98 1.83

Top Ten Companies by Turnover Volume for this fortnight September 16-30, 2016) Sl. No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Name of the Securities LankaBangla Finance Ltd. National Bank Ltd. GSP Finance Company (Bangladesh) Limited Bangladesh Finance and Investment Co. Ltd. Yeakin Polymer Limited Keya Cosmetics Ltd. GPH Ispat Ltd. Islamic Finance & Investment Ltd. CMC Kamal Textile Mills Ltd. City Bank Ltd.

Category

Volume in Nos.

A A A A N A A A A A

Value in Tk. mn

45,939,981 43,133,215 41,976,276 35,238,831 33,220,276 29,668,599 26,084,566 25,283,773 24,856,306 23,713,229

% of total Value

1,457.13 397.93 747.59 511.02 1,265.25 315.00 813.88 382.54 379.42 561.62

2.58 2.43 2.36 1.98 1.87 1.67 1.47 1.42 1.40 1.33

Top Ten Gainer Companies by Closing Price for this fortnight September 16-30, 2016) Sl. No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Name of the Securities GSP Finance Company (Bangladesh) Limited National Housing Finance and Investment Ltd Miracle Industries Limited Apex Spinning & Knitting Mills Limited Bay Leasing & Investment Ltd. EBL NRB Mutual Fund AIBL 1st Islamic Mutual Fund Renwick Jajneswar & Co (Bd) Ltd. Union Capital Ltd. Green Delta Mutual Fund

Category A A B A A A A A A A

Current Fortnight Closing Price in Tk. 20.80 48.20 37.10 128.60 19.90 5.60 8.80 742.60 13.70 7.10

Last Fortnight Closing Price in Tk. 13.80 32.90 29.20 104.50 16.30 4.60 7.30 617.30 11.40 6.00

% of Change 50.72 46.50 27.05 23.06 22.09 21.74 20.55 20.30 20.18 18.33

Value in Tk. mn

Average Daily Value Traded Tk. mn

747.59 742.87 361.23 173.67 151.95 5.58 20.21 90.23 165.86 19.39

67.96 67.53 32.84 15.79 13.81 0.51 1.84 8.20 15.08 1.76

Top Ten Loser Companies by Closing Price for this fortnight September 16-30, 2016) Sl. No.

Name of the Securities

Category

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Savar Refractories Limited Keya Cosmetics Ltd. Gemini Sea Food Ltd. Stylecraft Limited Modern Dyeing & Screen Printing Ltd. Meghna Cement Mills Ltd BD.Autocars Ltd. Bangas Ltd. Far East Knitting & Dyeing Industries Limited Premier Cement Mills Limited

Z A A A Z A Z A A A

Current Fortnight Closing Price in Tk.

Last Fortnight Closing Price in Tk.

40.50 10.20 817.00 1,191.30 220.60 109.20 44.70 180.40 25.10 92.40

50.80 11.80 910.50 1,315.20 239.90 118.40 48.00 193.50 26.80 98.60

% of Change (20.28) (13.56) (10.27) (9.42) (8.05) (7.77) (6.87) (6.77) (6.34) (6.29)

Value in Tk. mn

Average Daily Value Traded Tk. mn

0.21 315.00 201.94 13.48 3.65 171.31 4.98 63.10 173.76 118.00

0.02 28.64 18.36 1.23 0.33 15.57 0.45 5.74 15.80 10.73

Disclaimer: Dhaka Stock Exchange does not hold any responsibility for these date.

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Top Ten Companies by Turnover Value for this fortnight October 1-15, 2016) Sl. No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Name of the Securities Singer Bangladesh Ltd. MJL Bangladesh Limited Bangladesh Steel Re-Rolling Mills Limited Bangladesh Shipping Corporation BSRM Steels Limited Square Pharmaceuticals Ltd. Jamuna Oil Com. Ltd. Summit Power Ltd. Lafarge Surma Cement Ltd. Yeakin Polymer Limited

Category

Value in Tk. mn

A A A A A A A A A N

% of total Value 3.34 3.26 2.75 2.18 2.08 1.78 1.65 1.5 1.46 1.32

Volume in Nos.

1,377.47 1,342.69 1,134.72 899.84 857.71 732.86 678.27 619.76 603.36 545.54

7,169,107 11,424,866 6,927,612 1,864,740 8,436,950 2,716,480 3,415,894 17,627,071 7,829,455 15,772,146

Top Ten Companies by Turnover Volume for this fortnight October 1-15, 2016) Sl. No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Name of the Securities National Bank Ltd. C & A Textiles Limited Generation Next Fashions Limited Premier Leasing & Finance Limited.

Union Capital Ltd. GSP Finance Company (Bangladesh) Limited Dragon Sweater and Spinning Limited The Peninsula Chittagong Ltd. Paramount Textile Limited Familytex (BD) Ltd.

Category

Volume in Nos.

A A A B A A N A A A

% of total Value 3.55 2.13 1.92 1.83 1.54 1.46 1.39 1.35 1.35 1.34

Value in Tk. mn

48,028,516 28,808,699 26,032,014 24,760,236 20,824,560 19,808,293 18,831,592 18,275,661 18,245,954 18,077,891

451.99 260.94 194.58 262.22 306.16 391.46 212.03 336.33 375.33 156.65

Top Ten Gainer Companies by Closing Price for this fortnight October 1-15, 2016) Sl. No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Name of the Securities Standard Ceramic Industries Ltd. Evince Textiles Limited The Peninsula Chittagong Ltd. Desh Garments Ltd. Hamid Fabrics Limited Bangladesh National Insurance Company Limited Daffodil Computers Ltd. Standard Insurance Ltd. Intech Limited Stylecraft Limited

A N A A A N

Current Fortnight Closing Price in Tk. 65.70 22.10 20.00 266.10 20.60 17.10

Last Fortnight Closing Price in Tk. 50.00 18.10 16.40 228.70 17.90 14.90

A A A A

30.10 15.30 14.30 1,327.30

26.30 13.40 12.60 1,191.30

Category

% of Change

Value in Tk. mn

Average Daily Value Traded Tk. mn

31.40 22.10 21.95 16.35 15.08 14.77

88.50 341.66 336.33 60.38 185.71 205.65

11.06 42.71 42.04 7.55 23.21 25.71

14.45 14.18 13.49 11.42

297.03 9.30 227.27 9.47

37.13 1.16 28.41 1.18

Top Ten Loser Companies by Closing Price for this fortnight October 1-15, 2016) Sl. No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Name of the Securities Shyampur Sugar Mills Limited Yeakin Polymer Limited Modern Dyeing & Screen Printing Ltd. Bangladesh Steel Re-Rolling Mills Limited Zeal Bangla Sugar Mills Ltd. Simtex Industries Limited Eastern Housing Limited MIDAS Financing Ltd. Apex Spinning & Knitting Mills Limited Hwa Well Textiles (BD) Limited

Category Z N Z A Z N A Z A A

Current Fortnight Closing Price in Tk.

Last Fortnight Closing Price in Tk.

12.60 31.30 185.60 152.70 18.90 21.40 33.50 16.50 116.00 30.40

15.60 38.60 220.60 178.00 21.80 24.40 37.70 18.30 128.60 33.30

% of Change (19.23) (18.91) (15.87) (14.21) (13.30) (12.30) (11.14) (9.84) (9.80) (8.71)

Value in Tk. mn 0.99 545.54 1.77 1,134.72 3.83 94.84 123.21 6.85 151.18 12.85

Average Daily Value Traded Tk. mn 0.12 68.19 0.22 141.84 0.48 11.86 15.4 0.86 18.9 1.61

Source: Dhaka Stock Exchange

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