Staff Reporter

Bangladesh Bank governor Salehuddin Ahmed Saturday said that the sluggish trend in the country's trade and commerce was improving gradually.

Salehuddin said: "The rate of import and exports had increased over the past few months. In the last several months, remittance inflows had also increased."

The central banker termed the foreign currency reserves strong, in his speech to a discussion meeting with the representatives of Chittagong Chamber of Commerce and Industry and business leaders at the Chittagong branch of Bangladesh Bank Saturday.

He hoped the situation would improve substantially if the boro production reached the target. Bangladesh Bank was providing all-out assistance to ensure fertiliser and irrigation to the farmers, he said.

Mentioning that the foreign currency reserves were recorded at $5.4 billion, Salehuddin said that as the reserves were strong, the central bank had approved opening L/C worth 100 million dollars for the import of urea and other fertiliser in January.

At the meeting, the governor announced that a policy would be formulated in the next one month to lower import finance interest rates, L/C commissions and other charges and to coordinate the activities of commercial banks.

The BB governor said discussions would be held with the owners and officials of the banks in the next two weeks. He said work on formulating the policy would be completed in one month from now. "The work of collecting information from commercial banks in this regard has already started to ease import and export as well as to cut expenditure," he said. Efforts are underway to formulate a policy on foreign currency exchange, he added.

Mentioning the recent upward trend of import, Salehuddin urged businessmen to invest in the manufacturing sector so that trade and commerce did not become import-dependent. Dr Salehuddin said that it was not possible to meet the demand of the large population through import-dependent business.

"For this, production-oriented industries and factories would have to be established," he went on adding that development of agriculture and agriculture-based industries was important. He said in this regard that commercial banks had been directed to provide loans to small and individual entrepreneurs.

The governor said that in many cases the banks were misinterpreting the policy of Bangladesh Bank and harassing customers and mentioned that if the central bank got complaints about this, stern action would be taken. At the meeting, businessmen discussed import-loan interest rates, dollar prices, foreign direct investment, obstacles in import and export, high rate of interest on bank loans and an easier import and export policy.

On the businessmen's demand to lower dollar prices, the governor said that appreciating the taka against the dollar would have a negative impact on exports. On the different problems and complexities faced by the businessmen, Salehuddin said attempts would be made to solve the problems on the basis of reality.

CCCI president Saifuzzaman Chowdhury said that if the economy was not strong, whatever the government did would have no positive impact. Mentioning that FDI in the country was not up to the mark in the past several years, he said a proper policy was necessary so that foreign investors could not take away profits by only making small investments in the country. He said the release of shares of foreign companies in the market should be made mandatory.

Bangladesh Bank Chittagong region general manager SK Sur Chowdhury presided over the meeting. Former president of the Chamber Engineer Ali Ahmed, director Mahfuzul Haq Shah and Nasirul Haq, BGMEA director Ershad Ullah, and vice chairman of S Alam Group Abdus Samad Labu also spoke.

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