Ahsan Habib

The trading of treasury bonds in the stock exchange of Bangladesh has remained low although eight months have passed since their debut on the secondary market, owing largely to higher transaction costs and a lack of awareness among individual investors.

A strong legal system is required to end the default culture and stop defaulters from using writs to defer loan repayments and secure fresh credits, said Abdul Hai Sarker, chairman of Dhaka Bank Ltd. 

The main index of the stock market in Bangladesh remained relatively unchanged over the past fiscal year as most scrips were stuck at their floor price, according to market analysts.

Although the national poverty rate dropped in 2022, it rose in Dhaka, Barishal and Sylhet divisions. 

Loan recovery by non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs) dropped in the January-March period as businesses are facing the detrimental effect of a challenging business scenario amid the devaluation of the local currency and electricity shortages.

Islamic banking has garnered people’s attention with robust growth over the last decade as a large number of people in Bangladesh prefer the Shariah-based banking system for their financial transactions.

The proposed income tax law has sought to make it mandatory for taxpayers in specific cases to add the statement of their living expenses with their tax returns.

Corporate and foreign investors may further lose interest in the stock market of Bangladesh as the country has dropped a notch in the Moody’s Investors Service rating system.

The story of Bangladesh’s economic growth is predicated on solid ground.

The stock market stakeholders have been demanding for widening the tax gap between listed and non-listed companies by lowering the corporate tax for listed companies in order to encourage more companies to go public.

The government proposed going for making the Baggage Rules 2016 stricter, lower the limit for the travellers in case of bringing in gold bar or gold pieces and impose higher taxes.

High corporate taxes on banks, non-bank financial institutions, merchant banks, insurance companies and telecommunication companies are not logical as their profit is not high compared to capital, said Shahidul Islam, chief executive officer of VIPB Asset Management Company.

Conventional lenders in Bangladesh fell behind shariah-based banks in 2022 in terms of profit growth mainly due to the lower interest rate regime.  

No bank in Bangladesh has ever made so much profit in a year

Sustaining the development that has taken place in Bangladesh in the past 14 years and curbing inequality are key major challenges facing the economy owing to the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war, said Planning Minister MA Mannan.

Shares of most of the insurance companies rose almost every day in the last one month, becoming an outlier in a market that has been dull for several months due largely to persisting economic uncertainty at home and abroad. 

While a number of banks and non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs) are struggling to rein in their non-performing loans (NPL), DBH Finance PLC has continued to maintain the lowest NPL to loan ratio in the industry for years. 

Bangladesh’s gross domestic product is estimated to have grown at a slower pace in the current financial year with the biggest blow stemming from the industrial sector, official figures showed.

Most of the Shariah-compliant banks in Bangladesh clocked higher profits in 2022 despite a fall in deposits and the unprecedented fund withdrawal by customers and liquidity crunch.  

The economy is estimated to have expanded at a slower-than-expected pace in 2022-23, said the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) yesterday, a figure that analysts describe as good in view of elevated inflation, slowing exports and remittances and the ongoing pressure on the country’s foreign exchange reserves.