Bangladesh has improved its competitiveness for the fourth year, thanks to gradual progress in different indicators, mainly infrastructure, according to the Global Competitiveness Report (GCR). The country moved up one notch to 106 out of 138 economies on the Global Competitiveness Index for 2016-2017, prepared by the World Economic Forum. “This is positive that Bangladesh has increased its score and ranking gradually,” said Prof Mustafizur Rahman, executive director of the Centre for Policy Dialogue at the launch of the GCR at the Cirdap in Dhaka yesterday. The GCR ranks nations based on their ability to offer products and services meeting local and global quality standards at a competitive price with adequate returns on the resources employed or spent on providing them. A year ago, Bangladesh was ranked 107 out of 140 countries, according to the WEF that prepared the report unveiled worldwide yesterday. The Geneva-based forum made the report based on a survey conducted with a set of questionnaire to assess the level of competitiveness of the economies. The CPD released the GCR on behalf of the WEF in Dhaka. It also disclosed the findings of its Bangladesh Business Environment Study 2016. In the GCR’s competitiveness ranking, Switzerland continued to maintain its position as the most competitive economy in the world, narrowly ahead of Singapore and the United States. Following them are Netherlands and Germany, said the WEF. According to the report, all countries, except Sri Lanka, gained in rankings with India moving 16 notches up to 39 from last year. Bhutan and Nepal also rose in ranks and remained ahead of Bangladesh. Pakistan becomes the weakest performer among the South Asian countries. Bangladesh’s overall score rose 1.06 percent to 3.8 on the current index from 3.76 a year ago, said CPD Additional Research Director Khondaker Golam Moazzem while presenting the key findings of the competitiveness report.  Though infrastructure is said to have improved in Bangladesh, it still remains the major problematic factor for doing business in Bangladesh followed by corruption, according to the report. Limited access to finance emerged as the third major problem, Moazzem said, adding that problematic factors increased from a few to many.  Bangladesh’s competiveness is not growing compared to the countries it is competing with, he said.  “Bangladesh is stuck in the lower end segment of business competitiveness. We are walking but others are running.” The GCR shows that the country has made progress in infrastructure and institutional capacity. However, Bangladesh’s position has deteriorated in macroeconomic stability. It slid to the 65th position in macroeconomic stability from 49th last year.  Bangladesh’s position went down because of a declining situation in terms of government budget balance and gross national savings as percentage of GDP and the country’s credit rating in comparison with other economies, said Moazzem. Bangladesh has been increasing its competitiveness based on scores in 12 categories termed as the pillars of competitiveness. The competitiveness index is the weighted average of these pillars. Last year, Bangladesh moved up two notches from its ranking of 109 in the GCI 2014-15. The latest report said Bangladesh’s performance deteriorated in health and primary education and financial market sophistication. The country’s ranking of financial market sophistication fell to 99 from 90 a year ago. Moazzem said the financial sector suffers due to poor soundness of banks, limited availability of financial products and difficulty in raising capital through the stock market. “Financial system needs overhauling to improve its competitiveness,” he said, recommending a reform commission. Governance is the weakest part of business competitiveness of Bangladesh, Moazzem said. “The government should gradually focus on efficiency enhancing factors along with ensuring basic requirements,” he said, adding that other than electricity, none of the infrastructure facility was found to have improved considerably, said Moazzem referring to rail, road and waterways.

Container carrying to and from the Chittagong port on roads was disrupted for the second consecutive day on Tuesday as the trailer operators went on an indefinite strike on Monday morning demanding suspension of the activities of two axle load control centres on Dhaka-Chittagong Highway. Chittagong Port Authorities member (admin) Jafar Alam said trailer operators carry around 2,000 imported containers from the port every day, so around 4,000 containers got stuck at the port yards in the past two days because of the strike. He, however, added that container carrying was not totally suspended as covered vans and freight trains continued carrying the containers.Port sources said a huge number of export containers got stranded at 16 private inland container depots in Chittagong due to the strike. They also said the trailer operators, however, were carrying the export containers of readymade garments which were scheduled for shipment. Jafar Alam said they were facing problem with shipment of exporting containers as they also got stuck in different private depots. Chittagong Prime Mover Trailer Owners-Workers Unity Association member secretary Abu Bakar Siddiq said the government did not say anything about their demand till Tuesday afternoon. He said the Roads and Highways Department fixed a limit for carrying goods and announced fines against overload vehicles. A 14-wheel prime mover is allowed to ply with maximum 33 tonnes of weight. But importers and exporters load around 50 tonnes of goods in a forty-foot container, he informed. The vehicles are fined Tk 2,000-12,000 if they carry more than 33 tonnes, said the trailer operators’ leader, adding that the RHD made the decision without any discussion with transport owners and workers. Abu Bakar said Roads and Highways Department imposed fine on long vehicles at two axle load control centres located at Gomti and Meghna Bridge on Dhaka-Chittagong Highway from September 24. The RHD employees lodged cases against over a hundred vehicles on charge of over loading and also assaulted some drivers who had declined to pay the fine, said Abu Bakar. Humayun Kabir, joint-member secretary of Chittagong Prime Mover Trailer Owners-Workers Unity Association, said Around 11,000 trailers run under the supervision of the association. The trailers carry containers from and to Chittagong and Mongla ports. He said container carrying by trailers remained suspended all over the country.‘We also kept container carrying from Mongla Port in Khulna suspended,’ said Humayun.

Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed on Tuesday claimed in Parliament that the USA is not providing Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) facilities to Bangladesh on ‘political ground’, reports UNB. The made the claim while responding to a supplementary question from Jatiya Party MP Selim Uddin in the House. “Providing GSP facilities solely depends on the USA. It won’t be mentioned here why they (USA) are not giving these facilities. But I think the reason is political,” he said. Tofail said the USA does not give Bangladesh products duty- and -quota-free access to its market and they have stopped the GSP facilities, too. “We’ve fulfilled all the conditions that they have tagged to avail the GSP facilities. It’s unfortunate that we’re yet to get the GSP facilities even though the conditions were fulfilled,” he said. Meanwhile, the government refused to renew the licence of any Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) company in 2015-16 fiscal year as they failed to abide by related laws and rules. Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed said this in Parliament on Tuesday while responding to a starred question from M Afzal Hossain (Kishoreganj-5). He also said no MLM company has so far applied in the current fiscal to the government for running its business. The minister mentioned that the government enacted the MLM Activities (Control) Act, 2013, formulated MLM Activities (Control) Rules 2014 and amended the rules 2014 so that no one can cheat people in the name of MLM business. As per the law, he said, if anyone runs the MLM business without taking licence, he or she will be awarded 5-10 years’ imprisonment and fined Tk 50 lakh. All deputy commissioners and superintendents of police have been directed to take action if anyone runs the MLM business violating the existing laws. Another report adds: Australian High Commissioner in Dhaka Julia Niblett will call on Commerce Minster Tofail Ahmed at 11.00 am at the secretariat in the city on Wednesday. Australia is a development a major development partner of Bangladesh since independence.

A new multi-mode radar system would be installed at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA) soon, as the scrutinizing process of bidding documents for the upgradation work is going on quickly, reports BSS. A panel of experts is carrying on the process to nominate a firm to provide work order for supply, installation and commissioning of a Multi-Mode Surveillance System (Radar, Ads-B Wide Area Multilateration-Wam) along with air traffic control (ATC) and communication system, said officials of Civil Aviation Authority, Bangladesh (CAAB). The officials said four foreign firms along with their local partners submitted bidding documents for the jobs, but two of them were non-responsive in primary scrutiny. Now, technical evaluation of their proposal is underway. The Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism (MoCAT) received an unsolicited proposal under Public Private Partnership (PPP) in April, 2012 for upgradation of HSIA radar system. Later, Cabinet Committee for Economic Affairs (CCEA) approved the project on 23 September, 2013. Later, CAAB, PPP cell and International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) formulated tender documents and published Request for Interest (RFI) on March 28, 2014. Besides, CAAB floated tender on November 8 last year. Officials said existing radar system in HSIA comprised primary and secondary system. The primary system was installed in 1984 while secondary was in 1986. Later, those were upgraded in 1987, 1994 and 2008 involving Taka 4.54 crore, Taka 4.5 crore and Taka 15 crore respectively. According to the ICAO guideline, all the airports across the globe have to mandatorily upgrade the Air Traffic Control (ATC) and Air Traffic Management (ATM) system by 2017. To comply with the ICAO guideline, CAAB has initiated the process. Under the project, best quality and latest version of equipment/systems in the field of Surveillance, Communication and ATC would be collected while an iconic air traffic control tower along with well-planned and equipped air traffic control center would be constructed and communication system would be developed and upgraded. A CAAB official said CAAB would not invest in the project, rather it would have scope to earn over Taka 2,000 crore in next 20 years. Moreover, CAAB would get opportunity to train up its human resources for radar maintenance while the appointed firm would provide spare parts and maintenance cost for next ten years, he added.