Md Fazlur Rahman

Workers in Bangladesh witnessed the sharpest fall in their real wages among their peers in Asia and the Pacific in the last decade despite higher productivity gains, according to a new report from the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

Trade-based cottage, micro, small and medium enterprises (CMSMEs) would be able to borrow more from the government’s stimulus package after the central bank yesterday raised the ceiling by five percentage points.

Bangladesh has received $256.5 million from the global Green Climate Fund to promote private sector investment through large scale adoption of energy-efficient technologies in the textile and garment sectors.

Investment has not picked up in Bangladesh despite the reopening of the economy five months back largely due to the deep uncertainty caused by the coronavirus pandemic which continues to creep along.

Exporters and local businesses have received a shot in the arm since June on the back of improved economic activity but the fragile recovery could evaporate before taking root if the country is hit with a second wave of the Covid-19.

The second wave of Covid-19 will derail Bangladesh’s feeble economic recovery, deal a massive blow to the poor and low-income groups, reduce fiscal space and constrain public expenditure, said economists.

Workers in Bangladesh are still making do with lower wages compared to the pre-pandemic level as the ongoing economic growth has not translated into higher incomes for them in a major way.

The number of people using internet on their mobile phones in Bangladesh crossed the 10-crore mark in September as customers’ shift towards the digital sphere to carry out tasks made further gains owing to the coronavirus pandemic.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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