The Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation will negotiate with the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation and Malaysia’s Petronas Trading Corporation on reduction I premium rate on fuel oil imports because of the slump in oil price on the international market in Kuala Lumpur in December 1-6, officials said.
   A BPC delegation, led by its chairman Anwarul Karim will hold a review meeting in Malaysia’s capital in December 4–6 on premium rates, fuel oil carrying and other charges, with KPC officials for import of diesel, kerosene, octane and jet fuel from Kuwait, they said.
   The petroleum corporation imports around 22 lakh tonnes of fuel oils every year from the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, which is the major supplier of fuel oils to Bangladesh.
   The petroleum corporations of Bangladesh and Kuwait review the premium rate every six months while oil prices are fixed in accordance with the prices on the Gulf market.
   ‘The KPC during July–December increased the premium rate by a huge margin citing as reason price increase of fuel oils on the international market. Now the prices of fuel oils on the international market have come down by 60 per cent since the last increase in premium rate,’ said a BPC official.
   Although the premium rate for diesel import was $5.4 a barrel in January–June, the KPC increased the rate to $6.6 in July-December, which is the major increase in premium rate for diesel import in five years. The KPC also increased premium rate for kerosene and jet fuel to $7.0 a barrel from $5.65 and for octane to $8.1 from $7.7.
   According to the BPC’s rough estimate, it will need to pay an additional sum of Tk 58 crore to the KPC for July–December because of the high premium rate.
   Anwarul on Thursday told New Age they would ask the KPC to reduce the premium rate for January–December as the oil price on the international market had come down by more than 60 per cent.
   A high energy division official said the BPC was asked to strongly negotiate with the KPC to reduce the premium rate as most of the time the KPC had increased premium rates.
   The BPC delegation will also hold a negotiation with the Petronas Trading Corporation, a concern of the Petronas, in December 1–3 on reduction in the premium rates it offered for import of 9 lakh tonnes of diesel, kerosene and jet fuel next year.
   The petroleum corporation will, however, sign an agreement with Petco for import of around 30,000–60,000 tonnes of diesel this December with the premium rate that the both sides had already agreed.
   The BPC in September agreed to import 6 lakh tonnes of diesel at a premium rate of $6.3 a barrel and 1.5 lakh tonnes of kerosene and octane each with a premium rate of $6.75 a barrel in nine months till June 2009.
   The cabinet’s purchase committee, headed by the finance adviser, Mirza Azizul Islam, however, directed the BPC to sign agreements on the import of fuel oils for three months till December as the prices of fuel oils were decreasing fast.
   ‘We will now sign an agreement with Petco for import of one to two ships of fuel oils, around 30,000–60,000 for December as two months have already gone by. We will negotiate with Petco the reduction in the premium rate for more fuel oil import. If they offer us suitable premium rates we may import 9 lakh tonnes oil next year,’ said Anwarul.
   This is for the first time the BPC will import fuel oils from Petco.

Bangladesh stands out with good potential for a positive economic growth, said Bangladesh Bank governor Salehuddin Ahmed on Thursday.
   ‘We must invigorate our economic activities for further development in the economy,’ he said while inaugurating a seminar in Dhaka as the chief guest, adding Bangladesh could learn from the current global financial crisis and implement policies towards higher economic growth
   Citibank, NA Bangladesh organised the seminar styled ‘Bangladesh Economy: Prospects and Challenges’, which was focused on issues and factors responsible for sustainable growth in the Bangladesh economy.
   The discussants at the seminar were Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce & Industry president Latifur Rahman, BRAC executive director Mahabub Hossain, senior economist of World Bank Zahid Hussain, and Foreign Trade Institute chief executive officer MA Taslim.
   Former secretaries Siddiqur Rahman Chowdhury, Suhel Ahmed Chowdhury and Taufiq Elahi Chowdhury, former ambassador Nasim Ferdous, former CEO of Chittagong Stock Exchange Waliul Maruf Matin, and chairman of Shamunnay Atiur Rahman also spoke at the session.
   Mamun Rashid, managing director and Citi country officer, in his speech said Bangladesh projects higher future economic growth.
   Consistency and sustainability of economic growth will lead to further development for the Bangladesh economy, he added.
   The keynote presentation was made by Anushka Shah, economist, Citi South Asia.
   Senior government officials, diplomats, exporters, industrialists, and business leaders also attended the seminar.

Five trillion dollars have been lost in the global financial crisis, the head of the Davos economic forum said Thursday as he announced a record presence of world leaders at the conference in January.
   Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin will give the opening speech at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort on January 28 where the theme will be ‘Shaping The Post Crisis World,’ said its founder Klaus Schwab.
   The Swiss economist, on a visit to Paris, said: ‘As it stands now, about five trillion dollars has been lost in the financial crisis and now has to be reconstituted’ by governments.
   The forum had forecast the crisis in the financial system in its annual risk report at the start of the year.
   ‘I am not dramatically pessimistic about the future, just realistically pessimistic and I think there are also enormous opportunities in terms of using technology and changing the environment,’ Schwab told AFP.
   He said the turmoil, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, meant that the 39th annual Davos meeting would be the most important ever and it will have the biggest participation.
   Schwab said there would be more than 160 leaders of head of state or government or ministerial rank among the 1,200 business, social and trade union leaders at the five day forum.
   Putin was the only world leader whose presence was confirmed but forum officials said many leaders from the Group of Eight industrial powers and emerging economic powers were expected to attend.
   The full list will only be released in January.

Deadly attacks in India’s financial hub Mumbai could further dent confidence in a nation already reeling from a huge withdrawal of foreign funds from a once booming stock market, analysts say.
   Suspected Islamic militants on Wednesday invaded luxury hotels, including the Taj Mahal Palace, restaurants and the main train station in India’s commercial heart, killing at least 100 people and injuring about 300.
   ‘The terrorists attacked major landmarks in India’s financial capital, targeting spots popular with foreigners... to destabilise markets and scare off tourists,’ said Nikhilesh Bhattacharya, an economist at Moody’s Economy.com.
   Authorities shut down the stock, bond and foreign exchanges as troops surrounded the Taj and Oberoi/Trident five-star hotels Thursday that had been stormed by gunmen with automatic weapons and grenades.
   ‘The greatest significance is the scale they’ve achieved and also the elite nature of their targets — five-star hotels and restaurants,’ said Ajai Sahni, head of the New Delhi-based Institute for Conflict Management.
   ‘There has been a continuing attempt to undermine India’s economy over the past four or five years and this is part of it,’ he told AFP.
   ‘If we keep seeing attacks of this magnitude, perceptions of India’s security are going to shift and it will impact directly on investment decisions.’
   In the most immediate fallout, England decided to abandon their current cricket tour of India.
   Business leaders reacted with shock to the attacks.
   Indian liquor baron Vijay Mallya described the assault as ‘India’s 9/11. As much as we never thought it could happen to us it has and the government needs to start acting tough.’
   The attack is ‘an unambiguous attack on the Indian economy and all its participants,’ said Rajeev Chandrasekhar, head of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.
   A previously unknown group calling itself the ‘Deccan Mujahedeen’ claimed responsibility for the attacks.
   However, prime minister Manmohan Singh said the group which staged the assaults was ‘based outside the country,’ a veiled reference to Pakistan and possibly Bangladesh.
   ‘It’s clear the attacks were carried out with a much wider global anti-Western agenda,’ said Amit Chanda, head of the Indian Subcontinent practice of Risk Advisory.
   ‘This attack is a statement about India’s relationship with the UK and the US as we can see from the deliberate selection of foreign hostages involved in this situation,’ Chanda said.
   Witnesses said the gunmen had specifically looked for US and British citizens to take hostage.
   The city of 18 million people has bounced back after other big strikes, most recently after bomb blasts targeting railway commuters in 2006 killed 186 people and injured nearly 800, Moody’s Bhattacharya noted.
   But analysts said this attack was aimed at scaring away foreign investors and tourists in one of Asia’s fastest-growing economies.
   The timing of the attack was ‘unfortunate’ with Indian banks facing a major outflow of funds due to the global financial crisis, the central bank struggling to defend a currency at record lows and the economy slowing, Bhattacharya said.
   Mumbai is one of the world’s top 10 commercial centres and accounts for 25 per cent of the industrial output, 40 per cent of maritime trade and 70 per cent of capital transactions in the economy.
   ‘It’s a major attack on the financial heart of the nation and tourism — clearly designed to have maximum impact,’ said a Singapore foreign investment banker who was not authorised to speak to the press.
   ‘These images being flashed around the world are not going to be helpful, the effect on investor sentiment and tourism will be pronounced,’ said another banker whose investment house had asked him not to comment publicly.

The Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group has announced that it will sell up to 30 per cent of its shares in oil refineries to foreign partners that are ready and willing to supply crude oil to those plants on a long-term basis, Vietnam News Agency reported on Wednesday.
   This announcement was delivered by Petro Vietnam’s general director Tran Ngoc Canh at the West Pacific gas industry’s 10th conference-cum-exhibition that took place recently. And he also said that the per centage of stocks to be sold may be increased in special cases.
   A part from the country’s first oil refinery, namely Dung Quat, currently being built in the central Quang Ngai province of Vietnam and scheduled for completion in February 2009, PetroVietnam has plans to build two other plants.
   One of these two, with an estimated output capacity of 2,00,000 barrels a day and investment capital of $6b, is to be built in the central province of Thanh Hoa, Vietnam, in a joint venture with the Kuwait international oil and gas group and the Idemitsu Kosan group of Japan.
   The other, also with a production capacity of 2,00,000 barrels a day, is scheduled to be built in the southern region, the country’s largest consumer centre. The project is still at the discussion stage with foreign partners, including the Venezuelan National Oil and Gas Group.

Nokia, the world’s biggest cellphone maker, said on Thursday it will stop selling mobile phones in Japan except for its luxury Vertu brand after struggling to expand its presence.
   Finnish Nokia has previously said it will cut costs ‘decisively’, expecting global mobile phone sales to shrink next year amid an economic downturn.
   Japan is the world’s fourth largest mobile phone market after the United States, China and India. But it makes up only a tiny part of sales at Nokia, whose products have failed to lure customers away from more sophisticated Japanese ones.
   Mobile phone companies also see limited scope for growth in Japan, where 109 million subscribers, or some 85 per cent of the population, already own a mobile phone. In addition, a new sales model based on higher handset prices is expected to slash annual mobile phone sales in Japan by some 20 per cent.
   ‘In the current global economic climate, we have concluded that the continuation of our investment in Japan-specific localised products is no longer sustainable,’ Nokia executive vice president Timo Ihamuotila said in a statement.
   He added that Nokia’s Japanese business would concentrate on research, development and sourcing for the global market as well as specific projects such as the Vertu brand.
   The quirks of Japan’s mobile phone market have prevented foreign companies, including Nokia’s rivals such as Samsung Electronics and LG, from successfully targeting Japanese consumers.
   Most of the mobile phones used in Japan are part of third-generation networks and boast features such as TV broadcasting and electronic payment functions.
   This makes it tough for foreign manufacturers to compete with domestic handsets.
   Foreign companies, excluding Sony Ericsson, only occupy around 5 per cent of Japan’s cellphone market, according to IDC Japan, a research firm. Japanese manufacturers, in turn, have only a small presence outside their home market.
   ‘Nokia is facing global earnings problems and many other issues, and this shows Japan was a low-priority market at a time when they are shoring up global operations, even though it may still be attractive,’ IDC Japan analyst Michito Kimura said.
   ‘I’m not very surprised by the decision.’
   The move was still rather abrupt as NTT DoCoMo Inc, Japan’s biggest mobile phone operator, said just this month that it would sell a new Nokia smartphone as part of its product line-up for the winter shopping season.
   Third-ranked Japanese operator Softbank Corp also sells Nokia phones.

Thailand is losing about seven million dollars a day in tourist revenue as anti-government protests force the ongoing closure of the main international airport, an industry body said Thursday.
   Kongkrit Hiranyakit, president at the government-run Tourism Council of Thailand, told AFP the siege and closure late Tuesday of Suvarnabhumi Airport was causing ‘great damage’ to Thailand during its high season.
   ‘The airport is the heart of the country’s tourism,’ Kongkrit said, adding that between 60,000 and 70,000 tourists should be passing through the two-year-old hub every day at the moment.
   He said these holiday-makers spend an average of 4,000 baht ($113) each day they are in Thailand.
   ‘So, in estimation, we lose 240 million to 250 million baht each day following the closure of Suvarnabhumi. This is a huge loss for the tourism industry,’ he said.
   ‘More than 20 countries already announced travel advisories or travel warnings to their citizens about Thailand. That will affect the Thai tourism industry at least for the next six months.’
   The Tourism Authority of Thailand had been hoping to rake in 600 billion baht this year from 15 million foreign visitors. TAT figures show that 14.8 million tourists visited Thailand in 2007.
   Industry experts, however, have said that will be nearly impossible now, as the airport closures come after months of protests, rising fuel costs and the global financial crisis.
   ‘Even if the government gives one billion baht to boost the economy, that will not help cure the loss to the Thai economy due to the closure of the airport,’ Kongkrit said.
   A second Bangkok airport serving domestic routes was also surrounded and closed Thursday, as the People’s Alliance for Democracy dramatically escalated their six-month protest campaign to topple the elected government.

The United States faced more gloomy economic news Wednesday as European leaders called for a fresh stimulus package in the latest bid to stem the global financial crisis.
   A report on the eve of the national Thanksgiving holiday showed US consumer spending dropped 1.0 per cent in October, the steepest fall since September 2001.
   It foreshadowed a dismal start to the fourth quarter for the world’s largest US economy, which is reliant on consumer spending for around two-thirds of economic activity.
   A day after the US Federal Reserve said it would pump 800 billion dollars more into financial markets, the European Union in its turn unveiled a 200-billion-euro ($259b) stimulus package.
   ‘Coordinated European action can and will make a difference,’ commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso stressed as he put forward the wide-ranging EU package. ‘Business as usual is not an option.’
   But some economists were skeptical, with Marco Annunziata at Italian bank Unicredit describing it as ‘more of a publicity stunt than anything else.’
   ‘The commission’s plan is long on lofty rhetoric and short on concrete details, as has too often been the case,’ he said.
   Dismal news from the United States took the cheer out of the official start to the holiday season, usually the busiest time of year for retailers.
   Ian Shepherdson, economist at High Frequency Economics, called the consumer spending report ‘horrible’ and said much of the drop was linked to weak auto sales.
   But because of falling prices — an inflation index linked to the report showed a 0.6 per cent decline — Shepherdson said ‘the fall in real spending was 0.6 per cent after rounding, not quite as massive as the nominal plunge.’
   Other US reports made equally depressing reading.
   The Commerce Department said orders for big-ticket durable goods fell a whopping 6.2 per cent in October, a further bad sign for manufacturing.
   The drop in durable goods — such as planes, automobiles and appliances — was sharper than the 2.5 per cent decline expected on Wall Street.
   ‘The combination of sharp declines in consumer spending and capital goods shipments in October points to a very weak fourth-quarter GDP report and, at this point, we think a decline in the neighborhood of 4.0 in real GDP looks likely in the fourth quarter,’ said John Ryding at RDQ Economics.
   On Wall Street, traders looked past the bleak data though and sent the Dow Jones industrial climbing 2.91 per cent on bargain hunting at its close, in the fourth straight gain that has added more than 1,000 points to the index to finish at 8,726.61 points.
   In European trade, Frankfurt shed 1.06 per cent, Paris dipped 2.15 per cent and London lost 1.84 per cent near the half-way stage.
   The Federal Reserve on Wednesday meanwhile gave formal approval to Bank of America’s acquisition of Merrill Lynch, the Wall Street icon battered by the housing and credit crisis.
   The 50-billion-dollar stock acquisition had been announced in September at the same time rival Lehman Brothers collapsed and fears were rising over the survival of Merrill, the brokerage giant.
   On finalizing the deal, Bank of America will bolster its position as the largest US banking and financial firm with assets of 2.7 trillion dollars.
   Caught in the fallout of the financial storm, governments around the world have launched tax and spending programs to encourage spending and business activity, with the coordinated EU-wide plan seen as more effective than individual country efforts.
   Of the EU’s total package, 170 billion euros will come from national government budgets and about 30 billion euros from the budgets of the EU and the European Investment Bank.
   German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned against a ‘race’ between European Union states over the size of their economic stimulus packages, insisting Berlin was already pulling its weight.
   ‘We should not fall into a race of billions of euros,’ Merkel said as the European Commission put forward its sweeping package.
   Merkel said Germany needed ‘a policy of moderation, centrism and practical reason’ to face what economists say could be the worst downturn since the Great Depression in the 1930s.

The Russian central bank’s international reserves fell last week by 3.6 billion dollars, it said Thursday, after plunging 21.9 billion the previous week.
   The central bank has been selling foreign currency to buy rubles to prop up the national currency, which has been under pressure due to the financial crisis and fears for the Russian economy.
   The value of the reserves fell to 449.9 billion dollars as of November 21 compared with 453.5 billion dollars on November 14, the bank said in a statement.
   The bank has spent tens of billions of dollars over recent weeks supporting the ruble to prevent it suffering a major devaluation in the face of the current financial crisis.
   The pressure on the ruble gathered pace with the outbreak of the war between Russia and Georgia in August and intensified as the global economy moved into crisis over the credit crunch.
   The panic drove investors into traditional safe-haven currencies such as the dollar and the yen, so that currencies such as the ruble in developing countries suffered.
   A sharp fall in oil prices has also undermined the Russian currency. The central bank allowed the ruble to slide slightly on Monday, its second devaluation in two weeks.
   Thanks largely to its exports of crude oil, gas and other natural resources, Russia has the third biggest foreign currency reserves in the world after Japan and China.
   The central bank spent 57.5 billion dollars in the course of September and October in propping up the ruble.

Consumer and business confidence in the European Union slumped in November to the lowest level in 23 years in the face of looming recession, according to an EU survey on Thursday.
   The European Commission’s EU economic sentiment indicator tumbled to 70.5 points in November from 77.2 in October, hitting the lowest level since the survey was created in January 1985.
   Meanwhile, the commission’s eurozone economic sentiment indicator fell to 74.9 points in November from 80.0 points in October, dropping to its lowest level since August 1993.
   The slump in eurozone confidence exceeded by a wide margin economists’ forecasts for a fall to 78 points, as polled by Dow Jones Newswires.
   ‘Reflecting the widespread deterioration in economic sentiment, all EU countries reported weakening sentiment,’ the commission said.
   The EU’s executive arm’s separate monthly business climate indicator for the eurozone retreated to the lowest level since October 1993, dropping to a negative 2.14 points in November from a negative 1.34 in October.
   Economists said that retreating confidence painted a dark outlook for the European economy, which has been getting worse almost by the day.
   “The further plunge in economic sentiment in November bodes ill for investment, employment and consumer spending,” said IHS Global Insight economist Howard Archer.
   He added that it also “heightens fears that the region’s recession will be deep and prolonged.”
   Capital Economics analyst Jennifer McKeown said the drop in eurozone confidence suggested that the bloc’s economy would contract more than widely expected next year.
   ‘It has been a reliable indicator of annual gross domestic product growth in the past and now points to falls of around 1.0 per cent,’ she said.
   The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development forecast on Tuesday that the countries sharing the euro would see their combined economy shrink 0.6 per cent in 2009 and warned recovery was unlikely before the second half of 2010.
   The European Commission called on Wednesday for a 200-billion-euro ($259b) stimulus package to snap Europe’s
   economy out of recession through spending hikes and tax breaks.
   In light of the confidence surveys, Archer said that ‘there is clearly scope for the ECB to deliver a sizeable interest rate cut next Thursday.’

China warned on Thursday its economic downturn was deepening with the spread of the global financial crisis, raising the spectre of job losses and social unrest in the world’s most populous nation.
   In India, emerging Asia’s other economic titan, financial markets were closed after militants killed at least 101 people and held foreigners hostage in the commercial capital Mumbai.
   Trade minister Kamal Nath described the attacks as ‘an unfortunate event’ but said he did not expect they would slow investment.
   The warnings from China’s top planner came a day after its central bank cut interest rates by the biggest margin in 11 years in response to the worst global downturn in decades.
   The crisis that began last year with the collapse of the US housing market spread around the world, bringing several top financial institutions to their knees and pushing the United States, Japan and Europe into recession or to the brink of it.
   China’s State Information Centre, a government think-tank, forecast annual growth would slow to 8 per cent this quarter from 9 per cent in the third quarter, a rapid cooling from double-digit rates recorded in the past five years.
   ‘The global financial crisis has not bottomed out yet. The impact is spreading globally and deepening in China. Some domestic economic indicators point to an accelerated slowdown in November,’ Zhang Ping, chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, told a news conference.
   With factories closing by the thousands, Chinese officials have grown increasingly concerned in recent weeks that slowing growth may threaten the stability that the ruling Communist party craves for its 1.3 billion people.
   ‘Excessive bankruptcies and production cuts will lead to massive unemployment and stir social unrest,’ Zhang warned.
   South Korea offered to do more to protect its economy, Asia’s fourth biggest, from global headwinds.
   The government plans to buy bad debt from banks and said it would also tap a $30b swap line with the US Federal Reserve to supply scarce dollars.
   Aggressive interest rate cuts and trillions of dollars in financial sector bailouts and stimulus packages have been the order of the day since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September, followed by a lending freeze and the spread of financial pain to consumers and businesses.
   The world’s banking system is still not strong enough to support the economy and avoid a recession, the head of Britain’s financial regulator told an Italian newspaper in an interview.
   Adair Turner, chairman of Britain’s Financial Services Authority, added that the two key issues were bank capital strength and liquidity.
   Japan’s Norinchukin Bank said it would raise more than $10.5b to shore up its capital, the largest fundraising by a Japanese financial firm since the start of the global credit crisis.

President George W Bush is suspending a key trade pact with Bolivia, saying the South American country failed to cooperate with US anti-drug efforts.
   Bolivia’s participation in the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act will end December 15, the White House announced on Wednesday, dealing another blow to deteriorating relations between the two countries.
   The trade agreement gives Andean nations breaks on some US tariffs as a reward for cooperation in the drug war. Though the effects are still unclear, the suspension could jeopardise some 20,000 Bolivian manufacturing jobs and $150 million in trade between the two countries.
   President Evo Morales has expressed little remorse over losing special status with his country’s third-largest trading partner, having long opposed US involvement in Bolivia as a threat to its sovereignty.
   ‘We have decided to continue dignifying Bolivia by rejecting any condition on trade,’ Morales said at a trade fair held earlier this month to encourage Venezuelan businesses to buy products that went to the US.
   He also suggested Brazil and Mexico were possible alternate markets ‘for those Bolivian products punished by the United States government.’
   But some business owners are worried.
   ‘What we’re doing here is trying to find a replacement’ for the US market, said Marcos Iberkleid, owner of the Bolivian textile manufacturer Ametex, while attending the Venezuelan trade fair. ‘But that’s just substituting one market for another, when what Bolivia needs is to grow. We should be adding markets instead.’
   The decision was widely expected after the US placed Bolivia on an anti-narcotics blacklist in September, amid growing tensions.

The BRAC Bank Limited inaugurated Wednesday its Bhairab branch at Jahanara Mansion, Bangabandhu Sarani, Bhairab Bazar, Bhairab in Kishoreganj.
   Muhammad A (Rumee) Ali, chairman of the bank, opened the branch at a ceremony, said a press release.
   Nihad Kabir, director, AEA Muhaimen, MD and CEO, Firoz Ahmed Khan, and senior officials of the bank, and local dignitaries were present on the occasion.

The Mutual Trust Bank Ltd opened its 32nd branch in Rangpur recently.
   Mutual Trust Bank managing director Kazi M Shafiqur Rahman formally inaugurated the branch, said a press release.
   Quamrul Islam Chowdhury, deputy managing director, and other senior executives of the bank and a large number of local businessmen were present at the inaugural ceremony.

Hotel International Limited chairman Zobaer formally inaugurated the new pool-view extension of Café Bazar of Sonargaon Hotel in Dhaka recently.
   HIL managing director Solayman, Sonargaon Hotel general manager Hidetaka Ishiyama, and a number of distinguished guests were present on the occasion, said a press release.
   The extension enables guests to watch the exotic swimming pool’s view while dining in Café Bazar.

The dollar fell against the euro and yen on Thursday as a steady flow of poor US economic data depressed sentiment, traders said.
   In late morning London trade, the euro rose to $1.2939 from $1.2876 late in New York on Wednesday.
   Against the Japanese currency, the dollar dropped to 95.35 yen from 95.53 yen on Wednesday.
   ‘The greenback, for long the beneficiary of safe haven flows, has over the past couple of days been forced on the defensive as poor economic news weighed on the market,’ said Calyon analyst Stuart Bennett.
   Dealers were cautious despite continued efforts to tackle the global economic slowdown, including China’s biggest interest rate cut in a decade.
   ‘It didn’t take long for bad news on growth to overwhelm better sentiment from aggressive policy responses aimed at turning economies around,’ said NAB Capital strategist John Kyriakopoulos.
   A series of dismal US economic reports, including a 1.0 per cent drop in consumer spending last month — the steepest fall since September 2001 — depressed the market in the United States ahead of Thursday’s Thanksgiving holiday.
   Orders for big-ticket durable goods fell a whopping 6.2 per cent in October, a further bad sign for manufacturing, while weekly jobless claims rose 14,000 to a fresh 16-year high.
   China slashed interest rates Wednesday by 108 basis points, the sharpest cut since the 1997 Asian financial crisis, to boost the faltering economy, a little over two weeks after the government unveiled a $586b stimulus package.
   ‘Bold policy moves by China leave us more confident that Chinese growth might rebound in the second half of 2009,’ said Kyriakopoulos.
   The euro won a boost from news that the European Commission was to implement a 200-billion-euro ($259b) stimulus plan aimed at reviving the recession-hit eurozone economies.
   European Central Bank president Jean-Claude Trichet said eurozone policymakers were ‘ready to cut interest rates’ again to boost growth.
   In London trade on Thursday, the euro changed hands at $1.2939 against $1.2876 late on Wednesday, at 123.36 yen (122.03), 0.8367 pounds (0.8402) and 1.5493 Swiss francs (1.5512).
   The dollar stood at 95.35 yen (95.53) and 1.1975 Swiss francs (1.2042).
   The pound was at 1.5469 dollars (1.5319).
   On the London Bullion Market, the price of gold rose to $814.99 an ounce from $812.50 late on Wednesday.

Oil prices fell on Thursday as the market looked ahead to a weekend OPEC meeting in Cairo where the crude producers’ cartel may decide against slashing output.
   Light sweet crude for January delivery lost 81 cents to $53.63 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
   On London’s InterContinental Exchange, Brent North Sea crude for January dropped 62 cents to $53.30.
   ‘All eyes will now be on OPEC’s informal meeting in Cairo this weekend,’ said oil market analyst Nimit Khamar of Sucden brokers.
   ‘OPEC have to show they are willing to continue cutting output in line with falling demand if they are to succeed in stabilising prices and a cut this weekend and then in December could go some way in achieving that.’
   The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries has watched oil prices collapse from record highs above $147 in July, sparking serious concern among its members about plunging revenues.
   OPEC ministers agreed in Vienna last month to reduce production by 1.5 million barrels a day from November 1 as they sought to defend prices.

Transaction
   Exim Bank
   Nasima Akhter, one of the directors of the bank, has reported her intention to sell 50,000 shares out of her total holdings of 3,70,053 shares while Nasreen Islam, one of the sponsors of the bank, has reported her intention to buy 50,000 shares of the bank (in the block market) at prevailing market price through the stock exchange.
   
   Meghna Life Insurance
   Md Salauddin Badal and Sultana Nasrin, both are sponsors/directors of the company, have reported their intention to sell their entire holdings of 3,250 shares each at prevailing market price through the stock exchange.
   
   Standard Bank
   Rashida Chowdhury, one of the sponsors/directors of the bank, has reported her intention to sell 16,000 shares out of her total holdings of 84,658 shares of the bank at prevailing market price through the stock exchange.
   
   City Bank
   Hosne Ara Aziz, one of the sponsors of the bank, has reported her intention to sell 6,800 shares out of her total holdings of 1,08,000 shares of the bank at prevailing market price through the stock exchange.
   
   AGM
   Tamijuddin Textile
   The company has informed that the 24th and 25th annual general meetings of the company for the years ended on June 30, 2007 and 2008 will be held on December 30 at 9:00 am and 10:00 am respectively at the factory premises at Konabari in Gazipur. Book closure will be from December 23 to 30.
   Source: DSE