Square Pharmaceuticals Kenya EPZ Ltd, a subsidiary of Square Pharmaceuticals Ltd (SPL), Bangladesh, on Monday started construction

Visiting French Special Envoy Pascal Lamy yesterday was optimistic of getting Bangladesh's support to France's bid

Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed yesterday said Bangladesh is expected to come out of the list of least developed

Singapore-based franchise consulting and brokerage firm FranGlobal has recently opened its office in Dhaka with an

Better domestic policies are important for a country to benefit from trade, former WTO director general Pascal Lamy said yesterday. “I do believe trade opening brings benefit on the number of conditions that has to be made,” Lamy said. “Some of these solutions are international. There is an issue of the fairness of the global trade regime and it is only partially been addressed in the recent decades.” There remain flaws in international role, not all by developed countries, he told a public lecture on “Knowledge to Share, Planet to Care” organised by the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), a local think-tank, at Khazana Gardenia Banquet Hall in Dhaka. But most of the solutions lie with domestic policies, said Lamy, who is now the special envoy of the French government. He also stressed the need for policies such as competition policy, industrial policy, welfare policy and social security polices to reap benefits from trade. Lamy is now visiting Dhaka to win support from Bangladesh for France's candidature to host World Expo-2025 which bears the theme of sharing knowledge and caring for the planet. He said there was consensus that economic development leads to more welfare and brings less social and political conflict. People have been living and acting together in the planet for a long time. “This positive relationship is somehow broken,” he said. He said the world economy faces two major challenges – rise in inequality and environmental degradation. “We should acknowledge we have not addressed these in recent decades,” he said, adding that a rise in inequalities was leading to an increase in social and political tension in many places. Degradation of the environment also creates anxiety, he said. Inequality is mostly a domestic issue, he said and suggested for addressing it through policies focusing on education, health, housing and taxation. There are local problems and solutions should also come locally, he said. On environmental degradation and climate change, he said it has to be addressed at the national level. But doing it alone will not work, he said, citing issues on protecting the oceans from pollutions which necessitate global action. Migration now is also a cause for global concern, said Lamy, emphasising on sharing knowledge. “Knowledge is easier to share,” he said. “We, the French, like Europeans, have a concept that knowledge of science has to be open.” CPD Chairman Prof Rehman Sobhan said there was an enormous amount of knowledge to be shared. He also stressed ensuring a just global trading system, citing that a shirt sold at $5 by manufacturers here is priced at $25 at retails in the west. Sobhan suggested increasing the share of producers in the value of products.

Oil prices posted their strongest opening to a year since 2014 on Tuesday, with crude rising to mid-2015 highs amid large anti-government rallies in Iran and ongoing supply cuts led by Opec and Russia.

British energy major BP said Tuesday that it expected to take a $1.5-billion (1.2-billion-euro) hit from US President Donald Trump's tax reforms.

India's factory activity expanded at the fastest pace in five years in December, a private sector survey showed on Tuesday, buoyed by a rise in output and new orders, which allowed firms to raise prices.

China's central bank injected a net 212.36 billion yuan ($32.7 billion) into the financial system via short- and medium-term liquidity tools in December, rising sharply from November as it sought to ease tight cash conditions before the year-end.

China's national railway operator said on Tuesday that the country plans to invest 732 billion yuan ($113 billion) in rail fixed assets in

Asia's factories ended a strong 2017 on a mixed note, with activity at multi-year highs in Taiwan and India and surprisingly picking up in China, but contracting in some places in a sign regional interest rate hikes likely will be gradual.

The streets of Iran's capital have been relatively quiet as protests hit much of the country, but Tehranis still have plenty to complain about and demand action from the government.

The ailing dollar fell to its lowest in over three months on Tuesday, while surprisingly upbeat Chinese manufacturing data ensured there was no serious new year hangover for world shares despite a groggy start for Europe.

Gold extended its rally to a three-month high on Friday, leaping toward its biggest one-year rise in seven years as a wilting US dollar,

More than half of Germany's industry associations have shrugged off worries about U.S. protectionist policies and Brexit, and are more positive about their situation than they were a year ago, a survey showed on Wednesday.

Cambodia sent its first batch of maids to work in Hong Kong on Wednesday as the Asian financial hub scrambles to meet growing demand for domestic helpers after a series of abuse scandals.

APPLE Inc defrauded iPhone users by slowing devices without warning to compensate for poor battery performance, according to eight lawsuits filed in various federal courts in the week since the company opened up about the year-old software change.

Vietnam's economy grew 6.81 percent this year -- its strongest rate for a decade -- thanks in part to surging exports, data showed Wednesday.

Earnings at China's industrial firms grew at their slowest pace in seven months in November, as demand and producer price gains eased in further confirmation of ebbing growth in the world's second-largest economy.

Landlocked and poor, Armenia has long relied on Russia for its energy needs, but the government is hoping to reduce that dependence by tapping a resource that is plentiful in the region: the sun.