Stop The Tie-in

Privileged sales and banks' money to in-laws Lead us to a market full of flaws.

In recent weeks, some mobile operators are offering mobile phones with new SIM connection. "Tie-in" sales are pretty common in consumer activity but we have to keep an wary eye on such sales as it has the potential to harm consumer interests in the long run. In addition, many leading operators are offering insurance to protect your cell phones from future damage. At first sight, it appears harmless and beneficial to consumers. But a deeper look may unravel some uncomfortable truth.

For instance, operators offering "tie-in" sales are also providers of high speed data. With high speed data, you will often notice that browsers auto add plugins or updates,often supplied by malicious providers with dubious intentions. Furthermore, YouTube streaming or other live streaming like in Facebook often makes your device vulnerable to hacking. Apart from that ,WiFi hotspots and free WiFi network also make your handsets and devices vulnerable to hacking. Maybe some deranged employee within an operator may engage in harmful activities, causing you lots of trouble financially. I experienced these things in the past and am often vocal against such consumer practices. I used the public operator for some time at ease ,experiencing higher pace of internet and no damage to my handset whatsoever. But for the last 11 months, I have stopped using it as services deteriorated. Switching to other operators only brought back those bad experiences back. Why are you offering insurance to handsets or new handsets with new connections if you are not acknowledging there are some faults in your side causing damages to consumers' handsets? Damages range from wiping out the operating software to key-logging the onscreen keyboard,from dark screen to dysfunctioning touch pad. Very few consumers have little knowledge about what happened. Moreover, lack of technical knowledge of the law enforcement agencies and consumers also fails to track the origin of the problem .

From the perspective of fair business, "tie-in" may cause unhealthy business competition. Say company A holds significant market share in industry A and another company B (say it is in the mobile phone business) holds significant market share in industry B. The companies decide to offer "tie-in" product for industry A(say the mobile SIM market). This "tie-in" will consolidate their market shares for both the industries by pushing up their sales. In this time of austerity, while consumers tighten their pockets, this kind of "tie-in" gives unreasonable privileges to the companies who consolidate their market shares to worrying level. This should be stopped.

At the same time, there should be no access to public banks' money for operators whose owners are politicians or in-laws of politicians. In the past, we witnessed how banks' money fallen into the hands of politically blessed in-laws became bad loans, only worrying the ordinary depositors and worsening banks' balance sheet. If they have better business ideas, they should go to the stock market, to IFC/MIGA or to the Dubai/Singapore based banks. They should not be given access to local banks' money.

From poultry ingredient market to the cellular networks ,we see how tie-in is adversely effecting the consumers, leaving a heavy blow to welfare and competition alike. For the sake of business and consumer's interest in this time of austerity, all kinds of privileged sales pitch should be stopped.

Allow New Mobile Operators

Allow new mobile operators to enter So that consumers feel much better.

Bangladesh Telecom Regulatory Commission (BTRC) is going to hold hearing on the services provided by telecom operators on May 8. Prior to national election, it successfully abolished the 3-day data pack and made 7-day the minimum validity period. It retains the 30-day and unlimited validity packs. Consumers, however, pay a higher price for new validity packs. In general, prices of all data packs increased. Many operators lost small duration clients ,but made significant gains in profits in the first quarter of the current fiscal year. News reports divulged that GrameenPhone earned Taka 13.38 billion profit in the first three months. Meanwhile, Robi earned Taka 1.70 billion profit during the same period. It is important to note that Telenor and Axiata merged their Asian operations. So both the operators should be treated as same.

I used Teletalk for a long time as it offered the cheapest service in the country. But one week after the national election, quality of its service deteriorated. After making complaints, I did not see any improvement and I switched to other operators. Prior to using Teletalk, I interchangeably used various operators ,depending on which one offered the competitive prices. Many operators offered insurance for mobile phones in case they got damaged or new phone devices along with their SIMs. Sometimes later I discovered that far too often my phone got dead. I needed to run to a mobile servicing shop to flush/reinstall the operating software. Most of the time this happened while using the service of an operator based in Egypt. Another time it happened with another operator that offered freebasics, free internet service offered by Facebook. After paying between Taka 3000 and 4000 as mobile servicing fee for fixing my hacked phone in the span of three years,I thought it was time to change my phone. Back then Teletalk offered the most attractive services. And in the last two years I did not have to run for mobile servicing. I do not want to blame the operators directly for the hacking of phones. When we use browsers or internet,developers with ill intentions may target the mobile phones and infect them with malicious add-ons or software. Sometimes deranged individual within an operator may do sabotage act. But with the Teletalk I didn't have this kind of experience. I lost telepoints,balance and uncarried data. On some occasions ,I got back missing telepoints and balance after complaining to the highest level. On some occasions, I didn't get back anything. The horrifying experience of mobile servicing forced me later to document every telephone service mishap happened to me and report back to proper authority including the BTRC. In the last two and half years ,I did not have to spend much as I was using the cheapest service offered by public telecom operator. Later I learned Teletalk network expansion had been mostly done with Chinese credit and it owes a lot of money to public company and other vendors. Government is planning to sell part of its share to make it profitable again. I think the merger between Telenor and Axiata did a lot of damage to the services offered by the operators. Both the operators, followed by others, offered the identical services at the same price after that merger. Nowadays operators make hefty profits by selling internet data. But as consumers we don't know how to measure the data we consumed. I wrote a detailed piece about mobile data packs few years back. So I don't want to highlight the issue any more. The point is allowing few more operators or selling new licenses to operators originating from countries with huge trade potentials could make the telecom market competitive again. If we allow availing the service of railway optical fiber network and satellite internet along with the license ,then more investors feel encouraged to step forward. Prior to election, a Telenor director in an interview with a local daily hinted to wind up their operations here. But few weeks ago GrameenPhone boss in an interview told they made a u-turn on that decision and decided to stay. It is a good news,otherwise we will see another round of increase in the prices of telecom services.

BTRC has to take fair share of the blame. It failed to stop the merger between operations of Telenor and Axiata here in Bangladesh. For more than a decade telecom operators remained top revenue source of the government. How could BTRC allow such merger inside Bangladesh? It directly affected the revenue earning in this sector. Look at the first three quarter of the profits of the two( or same) operators. BTRC should make a regulation about publishing details about unused data in a year. Because consumers pay for data but some data remain unused and do not carry forward. So they have right to know what the operators do with that data. This may fall into wrong hands or be used in wrong purposes. Operators should disclose what amount of data remains unused and what they do with that. I think it should be given back to consumers as bonus or special offers or to offer welfare services like free internet for education/social awareness/alleviating digital divide. Nowadays we see telecom, real estate regulatory bodies like RAJUK are being headed by military men. I completely oppose this practice as those who lack transparency and accountability could not call into question others integrity. In that light BTRC simply cannot charge operators Taka 10 for some of the data collection activities it intends to undertake. In some hearings BTRC survey report justified abolishing short duration data pack. Contrary to the survey report, many news reports divulged that many consumers were unhappy with such idea. In this case one may doubt that findings are predetermined. I think Parliamentary committee should be given the task to steer the activities of BTRC and anti-trust activities in telecom services. In functioning democracies, Parliament plays a greater role in such case. We know we have problems here but we should start the practice and rely less on men-in-fatigue. It is a surprise that many agencies failed to anticipate the biggest merger in the telecom industry that happened in Malaysia, where many former senior army personnel and their relatives took refuge. Look at the strategic ties with Qatar. Despite commitment of boots-on-the-ground, Qatar bluntly refused to sell LNG on deferred payment. And the decision of strategic ties with Qatar was taken by few sidestepping the Parliament. Let's come back to point. We need new telecom operators to give a relief to the consumers and to augment the govt revenue.

Some Concerns Over A Merger (Updated)

[Reproduced below is a piece titled "Some Concern Over A Merger"that I penned and published on April 14 on this site. The merger of Axiata and Telenor in Malaysia, formally made public on June 21,2021, has implications for Bangladesh as the two have large subscriber base, controlling two-third of the market share.]

Merger of two rivals on foreign shore
Leaves a market with competition no more.
Allow entry of new operator
In exchange of market access for export sector.

In recent years, competition in Bangladesh economy is gradually waning. Cellular phone service offers the apt example. Earlier we had 5 operators. Merger between Robi and GrameenPhone reduced the number into 4. Recently a news broke out that Telenor and Axiata merged their operations in Malaysia. Telenor operates GrameenPhone and Axiata operates Robi in Bangladesh. Back in 2019, the two companies hinted that they would go for a merger and form a bigger GSM service company in Asia. But the communiqué made it clear Axiata and Telenor's Bangladesh operations would not be touched by the merger decision and they would operate as two separate companies. Despite their claim, their decisions may have significant influence over the cellular phone service industry of Bangladesh.

According to Bangladesh Telecom Regulatory Commission (BTRC), there were 68.7 million subscribers in 2010, in 2019 the number rose to 157.5 million. Till January 2019, Grameenphone had 73.06 million subscribers, Banglalink had 33.69 million , Robi had 46.90 million and Teletalk had 3.88 million subscribers (Source: Bangladesh Economic Review 2019). Clearly other operators paled to insignificance besides Grameenphone's subscriber base. Following the merger with Airtel, Robi acquired greater market share too.

Despite the repeated assurance from the operators if the news becomes true, true number of operators will come down to 3. Teletalk is operated by government by the way. This clearly has consequence for government as well as for consumers.

We have seen that relations between government and operators turned sour in recent years over contested tariff, slapping of supplementary duty, termination of employee and quality of services.

As operators become disenchanted with the government, consumers bear full brunt of it. They pay higher prices for existing products and experience poor service.

Back in 2018, I wrote a piece on how a decision by government about raising the duration of smaller data pack led to increase in data pack price and undermined consumers' interest.

When Robi and Airtel merger took place, Axiata paid Tk 1 billion as fees to regulatory authority. In addition, winding up of redundant customer centers and voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) were introduced to retrench cost.

[In the beginning of June, more than 100 employees of Grameenphone have been included in the list of VRS(Source: Daily Prothom Alo,June 20, 2021).]

It puzzled me that how two parent companies merged their businesses in somewhere else but isolate the other one in Bangladesh. No matter how convincing it sounds we have to take it with a dollop of salt. If Grameenphone and Robi exist as two different independent operators , they will offer competing products to consumers. Such competition will allow consumers to attain desirable product at affordable price. Parent company of Robi and Grameenphone has leverage to influence Bangladeshi market. The two operators may cease to offer competing products and thereby shape their anticipated profit.

Furthermore, such decision has other implications at various stages of business. One of the operators may incur loss and file for bankruptcy and shirk responsibility while parent company in Kualalumpur may sit on profits without diverting any part of it to troubled operator.

[A leading operator, also involved in the merger, discontinues a site that showcases games developed by Bangladeshi gamers. Promotional packages that offer attractive products are few. Operators put an end to free internet service, following a government instruction, that played a key role in educating kids from rural areas and to narrow the gap created by digital divide. Not only that the leading operators are less keen to get involved in CSR programs that were more prevalent few years ago.]

As mentioned earlier, Robi-Airtel amalgamation yielded Tk 1 billion to government coffer. Moreover, such merger required ample clearance from various branches of government. But parent company 's decision may be based on averting any regulatory intervention as such merger will give the two operators a subscriber base of 119.96 million and overwhelming dominance over the market, pushing the consumers at the mercy of operators. Moreover, declaration of a merger is likely to violate the Competition Act 2012, which was introduced to "prevent, control and eradicate collusion, monopoly, oligopoly, combination or abuse of dominant position or activities adverse to the competition "(Source: Bangladesh Competition Commission,Wikipedia).

So the statement of separate business operations might be a masquerade to eschew the issues involved in any public disclosure of merger.

No matter what the motif is Bangladesh should go for calling new operators to enter its GSM service market.

Prior to introduction of GSM service, tobacco related companies remained as biggest tax-revenue providers. Gradually mobile operators took their place. Merger news casts shadow over government's tax-revenue earnings from mobile operators. Now the biggest two operators are now in far more comfortable position to produce balance sheets that will be favorable to them, resulting in fewer corporate revenues from them.

[Once again government agencies that are supposed to keep tab on such developments in corporate world, particularly when it is concerned with golden goose of revenue earnings, miserably failed to notify the government (or intentionally swallowed it for personal gains). Government should strengthen and equip NBR, Ministry of Finance or Ministry of Foreign Affairs so that they could inform the government prior to such developments in corporate world. It is a must because they are directly accountable to government and constitutional bodies. So their actions, success and failure will reflect government policies and will be subject to scrutiny.]

So Bangladesh has no option but to allow new entrants into this market.We have to take some strategic considerations while offering new license. We have to make sure that such lucrative license could open new doors for our goods to the uncharted territories. For instance, we may welcome operators from Africa, South America, Turkey, Russia and Japan in exchange of greater market access of Bangladeshi goods like RMG , pharmaceuticals etc. Earlier we had not done it. Now, we should not repeat the same mistake.

No matter what statement the operators trot out, we, the consumers, look askance at them. At the end of the day, consumers pay a heavy toll from their own pockets when some wayward operators are in the thick of undermining the competitive business environment. We are witnessing it with growing concerns in many other areas!

Some Concerns Over A Merger

Merger of two rivals on foreign shore
Leaves a market with competition no more.
Allow entry of new operator
In exchange of market access for export sector.

In recent years, competition in Bangladesh economy is gradually waning. Cellular phone service offers the apt example. Earlier we had 5 operators. Merger between Robi and GrameenPhone reduced the number into 4. Recently a news broke out that Telenor and Axiata merged their operations in Malaysia. Telenor operates GrameenPhone and Axiata operates Robi in Bangladesh. Back in 2019, the two companies hinted that they would go for a merger and form a bigger GSM service company in Asia. But the communiqué made it clear Axiata and Telenor's Bangladesh operations would not be touched by the merger decision and they would operate as two separate companies. Despite their claim, their decisions may have significant influence over the cellular phone service industry of Bangladesh.

According to Bangladesh Telecom Regulatory Commission (BTRC), there were 68.7 million subscribers in 2010, in 2019 the number rose to 157.5 million. Till January 2019, Grameenphone had 73.06 million subscribers, Banglalink had 33.69 million , Robi had 46.90 million and Teletalk had 3.88 million subscribers (Source: Bangladesh Economic Review 2019). Clearly other operators paled to insignificance besides Grameenphone's subscriber base. Following the merger with Airtel, Robi acquired greater market share too.

Despite the repeated assurance from the operators if the news becomes true, true number of operators will come down to 3. Teletalk is operated by government by the way. This clearly has consequence for government as well as for consumers.

We have seen that relations between government and operators turned sour in recent years over contested tariff, slapping of supplementary duty, termination of employee and quality of services.

As operators become disenchanted with the government, consumers bear full brunt of it. They pay higher prices for existing products and experience poor service.

Back in 2018, I wrote a piece on how a decision by government about raising the duration of smaller data pack led to increase in data pack price and undermined consumers' interest.

When Robi and Airtel merger took place, Axiata paid Tk 1 billion as fees to regulatory authority. In addition, winding up of redundant customer centers and voluntary retirement scheme were introduced to retrench cost.

It puzzled me that how two parent companies merged their businesses in somewhere else but isolate the other one in Bangladesh. No matter how convincing it sounds we have to take it with a dollop of salt. If Grameenphone and Robi exist as two different independent operators , they will offer competing products to consumers. Such competition will allow consumers to attain desirable product at affordable price. Parent company of Robi and Grameenphone has leverage to influence Bangladeshi market. The two operators may cease to offer competing products and thereby shape their anticipated profit.

Furthermore, such decision has other implications at various stages of business. One of the operators may incur loss and file for bankruptcy and shirk responsibility while parent company in Kualalumpur may sit on profits without diverting any part of it to troubled operator.

As mentioned earlier, Robi-Airtel amalgamation yielded Tk 1 billion to government coffer. Moreover, such merger required ample clearance from various branches of government. But parent company 's decision may be based on averting any regulatory intervention as such merger will give the two operators a subscriber base of 119.96 million and overwhelming dominance over the market, pushing the consumers at the mercy of operators. Moreover, declaration of a merger is likely to violate the Competition Act 2012, which was introduced to "prevent, control and eradicate collusion, monopoly, oligopoly, combination or abuse of dominant position or activities adverse to the competition "(Source: Bangladesh Competition Commission,Wikipedia).

So the statement of separate business operations might be a masquerade to eschew the issues involved in any public disclosure of merger.

No matter what the motif is Bangladesh should go for calling new operators to enter its GSM service market.

Prior to introduction of GSM service, tobacco related companies remained as biggest tax-revenue providers. Gradually mobile operators took their place. Merger news casts shadow over government's tax-revenue earnings from mobile operators. Now the biggest two operators are now in far more comfortable position to produce balance sheets that will be favorable to them, resulting in fewer corporate revenues from them.

So government has little choices to allow new entrants into this market.We have to take some strategic considerations while offering new license. We have to make sure that such lucrative license could open new doors for our goods to the uncharted territories. For instance, we may welcome operators from Africa, South America, Turkey, Russia and Japan in exchange of greater market access of Bangladeshi goods like RMG , pharmaceuticals etc. Earlier we had not done it. Now, we should not repeat the same mistake.

No matter what statement the operators trot out, we, the consumers, look askance at them. At the end of the day, consumers pay a heavy toll from their own pockets when some wayward operators are in the thick of undermining the competitive business environment. We are witnessing it with growing concerns in many other areas!

La Semaine Dernière A Mes Yeux

(29 février --- 06 mars)

Selon un reportage, RAB a extrajudiciairement tué 7 voleurs présumés près de la frontière entre Bangladesh et Birmanie.

Selon un reportage, International Narcotics Control Board de l'ONU a décrit l'état de Bangladesh comme «inquiétant ». Le rapport a mis l'accent sur qu'en 2018 53 millions de «yaba» ont été saisis par les forces de l'ordre.

Selon un reportage, 5 Bangladais qui révélaient symptômes de Covid-19 ont été mis en quarantaine dans un hôpital. Le porte-parole de l'IECDR affirme qu'il n'y a pas d'inquiétude.

Selon un reportage, escarmouche entre la force frontière et les villageois a laissé 5 personnes mortes dont 1 soldat de la force frontière.

Selon un reportage, chaque année presque 7,53 milliards ont été blanchis depuis Bangladesh. Dans son rapport, Global Financial Integrity a divulgué cette info.

Selon un reportage, l'ONU a demandé $870 millions pour aider les Rohingyas au Bangladesh. Les États-Unis ont affirmé que le pays donnerait $60 millions pour les Rohingyas cette année.

Selon un reportage, 4 étudiants de Bangladesh Agricultural University restent disparus après ils sont allés en Arabie Saoudite pour faire le hajj.

Selon un reportage, le secrétaire norvégien des Affaires étrangères est entré en pourparlers avec son homologue bangladais sur les tarifs arriérés contestés de Grameenphone, où la société norvégienne détient les actions. Telenor , un jour plus tard, dans un communiqué a dit que la société télécom de Norvège allait licencier 15% de ses salariés dans les mois qui viennent.

Selon un reportage, Netra News a fait un reportage sur appel d' al-qaïda à ses fidèles à l'intérieur de l'armée bangladaise de mener attaque contre ambassadeur de l'Inde , ambassadeur des États-Unis et Premier ministre bangladais .Le message a été publié dans sa publication «Lone Wolf». Autres presses pas encore affirment la nouvelle.

Dismal Job Market: Who Gets The Blame?

A recent study on unemployment reveals that 34% of the graduates are currently unemployed. The study in progress has found that the  performance of graduates in job is not as good as the employers anticipate and the education system is not compliant with the job market.

I have not got the chance to leaf through the study in question. So I am not going to comment on the study.

However, it is not clear how many of the graduates have lost their jobs due to stalled growth in private sector. Vibrant private sector is conspicuously absent in Bangladesh, a place dominated by crony infested businesses. At the same time, slowing down of growth in major economies also affects the private sector here. In recent months, many multinational companies have wound up their operations in this part of the world to expand their operations or to reduce cost significantly.
A recent news report says 64 RMG factories have been closed down in 10 months of this fiscal year as they are unable to cope with government's new salary decision and lack of bank support for this crucial sector in the wake of piling up of non performing loan. Lugubrious air prevailing in the financial sector is largely due to squandering of bank money and mismanagement.

So banks grow cautious to lend further and trust deficit stalls the growth of private sector. Sometimes policy decision also plays a role influencing the job market. We witnessed plenty of examples in telecom sector.
Citycell laid off thousands of workers after regulatory authority had shut it down over due payments. Angry workers descended into the streets and staged protest against the decision.

Two other major operators declared a merger and fought a legal battle with the government over contested tax. The operators lost the battle and were asked to pay the tax money to the government. One of the operators has launched a voluntary separation scheme for its employees in order to economize its labor force.

Their actions lend credence to the argument that consumers and workers bear full brunt of cost cutting measures.

Tension is also  brewing in media industry. In the beginning of this year, an association of broadcast journalist was formed to protect the interest of the journalist from the whims of the owners. Most of these outlets are set up with political blessings where professionalism has little role to play. Indiscriminate termination of journalist is pretty common. A TV channel drew ire of the journalist community after the TV authority had fired the whole reporting and editorial team of the news department.  More recently, fired journalist of a TV channel laid siege to TV premises. Many journalists have not been paid their dues. Even the experienced and senior ones face the music.

It is more or less pretty evident that experience and skill has no role in recent termination in the media. Business model may be wrong or the  outlets  were set up on different purposes. In the face of increasing cost, they simply scuttle the journalists.

Truth is there is no vibrant and free private sector, where ups and downs reflect rules of free market. Question remains on how one can blame performance and skill set of an employee in this crony infested and politically aligned private sector.

Drawing lessons from our RMG industry offers some objective explanation. When it all started back in late 70s, bureaucrats and people closer to power corridor managed to grab the permit to set up factories. RMG buyers from Hong Kong and South Korea trained the initial work force made them ready to deliver the desired product. This in-house training program prepared the skilled workforce. None back then envisaged that our RMG industry would reach such stage. Obviously we need more specialized institution to churn out more knowledgeable employee to deal with the challenges when the industry is on a firm footing.

When the industrial revolution was unfolding,  European countries did not target job market and did not churn out market desired workers.  Rather back then those countries produced finest quality of mathematicians and innovative minds. Instead of job market soothsaying , we need to take cue from those periods.

Look what happened to the Indian IT sector. New rules by the American government and trade war between US and China made a heavy dent in Indian IT job market. It does not mean that those who got fired do not have the skill . Rather, they fell victim of a bad patch in Indian IT industry.

What we are missing here is crux of the problem. Quality of education is the area where we should concentrate instead of making workers. We have to ensure quality education at all levels. If that happens then we will get good citizens who will be able to contribute tremendously to the society through their thoughtful duties and deeds. They will be able to meet the challenges of the future at the same time.


At the moment, we are pursuing an educational policy that is parallel to feeding a cub semi prepared food by a carnivore. There is always someone to crack the problem for a  student.  Omnipresence of these coaches seriously hampers the learning process of a student. A student does not stumble upon a problem more often and solves the problem by himself. The result is we are getting dependent generations who have no confidence in themselves. Appalling state of innovation, lack of quality books, lack of pioneer in every field are tell-tale signs.


Repository of knowledge, book, that helps a learner in his/her formative years is not easy to find. Libraries, where a learner gets a chance to find them, are drying up. Government and private donations that sustain them are rare.

Journalist Samanth Subramanian once wrote a feature about the public libraries in the state of Tamil Nadu, one of the Indian states that produces super IT professionals and  scientists. Central and local government allocated special funds to the libraries scattered across the state, according to him. The fund used to buy various genres of books and magazines, including foreign ones, to quench the thirst of the bibliophiles. Thanks to government patronage, these institutional buyers help flourish local publication industry and dawn a breed of readers.

Red=2015 & Green=2017. Num of Technical Institution. Source: BANBEIS

Meanwhile, to instill special kind of technical knowledge, we need technical schools and teachers' training college. We failed miserably to  groom our future teachers. Stat furnished by BANBEIS on the number of technical institution is pretty disappointing. I find the SSC and HSC vocational training institute number pretty erroneous. However, number of Technical School, Graphic Art Institute, Textile Institute, Survey Institute, Agricultural Training Institute,Marine Institute and Medical Training Institute stands pretty much same in 2015 and 2017. There have been slight increase in the number of Polytechnic Institute and Technical Training Center.

Similarly, we need to recruit good teachers for these technical schools. If we are really serious , the number of institutions and teachers should have gone up.

Quality text books also lack here. Unfortunately, we do not have enough good educational content writers or academic to write legible and good text books that explain things to a learner crystal clear. Another hint that our education system is really poor.
Instead of going after the indirect reasons, we should focus on the right target in order to get good citizens and world class workforce.

Quality education is not a privilege to few but a right for all that holds the key to augment the threshold quality of a typical learner. Attaining that goal obviates the need to do research on such trivial issues on our labor force and spares the fund for more pressing one.

Big Brands Ditch Bangladesh

More and more multinational companies are winding up their operations in Bangladesh. The latest incident took place when foreign investors of Dutch-Bangla Bank, which is doing well amid troubled commercial banks, declared that they were going to sell their shares to Bangladeshi investors.

The decision was not greeted well across the market and to a great extent highlights the sorry state of business. It came at a time when GrameenPhone and Robi, two leading mobile phone operators of the country, are at loggerhead with the government over contested due taxes. Robi divulged to the press that consumers would pay the extra cost if government planned to go ahead with the collection of contested dues by hook or by crook, bypassing the arbitrary settlement process. Sea changes took place in telecom industry  when GrameenPhone and Robi agreed to merge their operations in Asia. Following a negative reaction from the press , Telenor said they had postponed the decision.

Despite significant improvement of Bangladesh's ranking in World Bank's "Doing Business Report", world's leading brands and investors are leaving Bangladesh one by one. This does not lend support to the claim that sound business climate prevails in Bangladesh. At the same time major economic zones across the globe are crippled by economic slowdown. The situation is writ large on the falling order of RMG industry. The cash cow of Bangladesh economy has not registered the anticipated growth target in the ongoing fiscal year.

Even the domestic demand does not look so promising to many foreign brands. Singer sold all its sales outlets in Bangladesh to Turkish home appliances manufacturer Arcelor. Bata with its more than 1000 sales centers across Bangladesh made a profit of Tk 50 crore in 2018. Meanwhile, a sprawling slum could generate that much of money each month provided that we take into account regular cash given by the drug lord operating in the sum. I recently went to a Bata discount shop and saw shoes were up for sale at a quarter of their original price.

In the pharmaceutical industry, GlaxoSmithKline announced its closure of pharmaceutical division two years ago. Its consumer division was making profit back then. So the announcement came as a total surprise. This year French Sanofi declared that it would sell its operations here. Purdu pharma made similar declaration. Being a least developed country, Bangladesh enjoys some WTO advantages for making cheap drugs. This advantage did not bar these companies to take such harsh step. There has been some issues in the business environment or governance. None bothered to search the answer.

In IT, Accenture, an Indian IT firm doing some content related work for Telenor in Bangladesh, abruptly declared closure of its operations in Bangladesh. This kind of announcement did not send positive signal abroad to foreign investors. Meanwhile, key businesses and funds to stimulate business are being concentrated into the hands of some cronies who have proven that they are unable to bring the much needed wind of change in the economy. From garbage collection to public infrastructure construction, one can see the footprints of powerful oligarchs who spare no means to get rid of any competitor or obstacle. Recent drive against casino is an eye opener. Greed of the few brings down the whole system and corrupts the process of transparent dealing. In the end, government spending does not stimulate the private sector, plays no role to create any meaningful jobs and finds innovative ways to be laundered abroad.

A handful of groups are responsible for the bad loans that cause bankers and government officials to spend sleepless nights as piling up of bad loans poses serious menace to the economy. From container transportation through waterways to direct to home TV services, powerful oligarchs control the vital businesses , leaving little room for private sector, which will take the onus to propel the economy, to play any leading role.

This is indeed not a very promising sign for the future course of the economy, which requires a holistic growth approach to create more opportunities for all and to accelerate the trickle down process to dispel inequality.

One global brand after another abandons Bangladesh, mocking the indicators that say business climate is improving. Meanwhile, concentration of wealth into the hands of the powerful few augurs ill for Bangladesh economy.

La Semaine Dernière A Mes Yeux

(6 septembre --- 13 septembre)

Selon un reportage, société norvégienne Telenor dans un communiqué s'est dit qu'elle avait brusquement mis le fin au pourparlers de fusion entre Telenor et Axiata dans le marché de l'Asie du sud.

Selon un reportage, une explosion mystérieuse dans un restaurant à Gazipur a laissé blessé une dizaine de personnes.

Selon un reportage de BBC, Tatmadaw a construit facilité militaire sur les villages de Rohingya ciblé par violence et assaut incendiaire.

Selon un reportage, incendie a ravagé une usine de frigo à Gazipur.

Selon un reportage, les ouvrières d'atelier de confection font au sujet de harcèlement sexuel au Bangladesh. Le plateforme d'atelier de confection, BGMEA, se dresse contre le reportage de Guardian.