Rajpunnah fest in Bandarban tomorrow
Rajpunnah, the traditional festival of tribal Bomang community to pay annual land tax to the king, will be celebrated in Bandarban tomorrow.
The much-awaited festival, introduced in 1875, is organised mainly for land tax collection from the inhabitants after harvesting ‘jhum’ crops.
To mark the occasion, a three-day folk fair will be held. The 15th chief (Raja) of Bomang circle Aoung Sue Prue Choudhury will formally collect tax from the inhabitants in a traditional way.
The king will arrive at the Raj Durbar with the Royal guests amidst sound of bugle. His courtiers and other token soldiers, all attired in traditional dresses, will formally receive the king.
Source: Newage
Boeing renews offers to modernise Biman fleet
American aircraft maker Boeing has renewed an offer to modernise Biman’s age-old fleet by providing the ailing national carrier with eight new generation planes, a top airline official said Tuesday. The Chicago company can supply four B-777 and B-787 Dreamliner between 2013 and 2017 at a price of around $1.8 billion should Biman place the order by March 15, chief executive of the airlines, MA Momen, said. Airlines officials said Biman is ready to place the order as Boeing has said it would arrange funding from the US Exim Bank. The company would be supplying the commercial planes in two phases-the first one in 2013 and the second in 2017, they added The board of Biman had earlier agreed in principle to place the order for the planes after Boeing sent a price quotation, asking the Bangladeshi carrier to respond by January 15. Of the eight aircraft, Boeing has proposed that it would supply four aircraft by 2013 if both parties agreed on a deal. An aviation expert calculated the value of the order in the territory of US$1.8-$2.0 billion, analysing the Boeing’s catalogue prices.
At present, Biman owns three types of aircraft — four DC10-30s, four F-28s, and three A310-300s. Among them, DC10-30s are aged over 28 years. The airline authority stopped flying the F-28s after they proved to be fuel inefficient and too costly to maintain.
BASIS Softexpo to begin in Dhaka February 14
Local software companies expect the upcoming BASIS Softexpo 2008 to yield a good number of outsourcing and joint venture initiatives with the largest number of foreign companies and delegates participating in this year’s fair.
The Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services, the national trade body of software and ICT service companies, is going to organize the five-day event from February 14 at the Bangladesh China Friendship Conference Centre in association with international trade bodies.
Organisers said at a press conference on Tuesday that about 50 foreign companies and delegates from five countries will take part alongside the local companies at this year’s fair.
The convener of the exhibition, TIM Nurul Kabir said that they are expecting a good number of match making session with the delegates and local companies, during which local software companies will get an opportunity for outsourcing and partnership with foreign companies.
Rafiqul Islam Rowly, president of BASIS, said, ‘we have a serious image problem in the international market and our strategy is to bring the potential foreign companies to the country through this fair so that they can see for themselves the progress in our ICT sector’.
Denmark will be the theme country for this year’s event and IT Industry Association of Denmark will be the association partner of BASIS Softexpo 2008.
Danish Federation of Small and Medium Industries, Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry, UK Trade and Investment, Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), will all be strategic partners of the exposition.
Rafiqul Islam said, ‘Denmark is the theme country for this year because they are emerging as the engine of our joint venture and outsourcing businesses in the software industry.’
Natahalia Feinberg, chargé d’affaires of Danish Embassy in Dhaka, said around 15 Denmark-Bangladesh joint ventures had been established in the country and many Danish companies are also outsourcing software development mainly in architecture, graphic design and 3D animation to Bangladesh.
She said about 15-20 Danish firms are coming to the expo and she hoped that the number of partnerships and joint venture will increase this year.
Tomohiro Kinomoto, representative of Japan External Trade Organisation in Dhaka, said Japanese companies are looking for outsourcing partners in Bangladesh. He said a total of six Japanese companies will participate at this year’s exposition in their bid to find outsourcing partners.
Kevin Ringham of the UK Trade and Investment at the British High Commission in Dhaka said there are opportunities for UK and Bangladeshi companies to work together. UK Trade and Investment will promote UK companies that collaborate with Bangladeshi ones, he said .
Shakhwat Ali, director of Export Promotion Bureau, Feroz Mahmood, country representative of Microsoft and Mostofa Jabbar, president of Bangladesh Computer Samity were present at the press conference.
The theme of this year event is ‘Get, Gain and Grow’.
Around 200 software and IT service companies are expected to participate at the fair. The exhibition will be categorised into zones such as business software, outsourcing, multimedia, animation and games, e-commerce, e-governance, hardware technology solution, telecommunication and networking, and a number of other categories.
The expo will also feature a Best IT Use Award, IT job fair and seminars on IT issues like e-commerce, e-governance, cyber laws, access to finance, and human resource development.
Organisers expect about one lakh visitors at the exhibition.
Source: Newage
South Korean company at CEPZ to go for expansion
The Youngone Ltd at Chittagong Export Processing Zone will go for expansion with the involvement of five million dollars. An agreement to this effect was signed between the Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority and the Youngone Ltd in the BEPZA complex, Dhaka Tuesday, said a press release. Under the agreement, the 100 per cent foreign owned company will enhance its production capacity employing 500 more Bangladeshis. At present 2,546 Bangladeshis are working in the factory. General manager (investment promotion) AZM Azizur Rahman of BEPZA and Md Nurul Alam, deputy director of Youngone Ltd, signed the lease agreement on behalf of their respective organisations. Among others Brig Gen Ashraf Abdulah Yussuf, executive chairman, member (engineering) Md Farhad Uddin and secretary BM Kamal of BEPZA were present at the signing ceremony.
Source— BSS
Xenovalley signs MoU on power project at Bangladesh
Malaysian company Service Master SDN BHD on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding on setting up power generation plant as a joint venture with the Xenovalley Model Town Limited. The MoU signing function, held at the Sonargaon Hotel, also focused potentials of increasing bilateral trade and investment between Bangladesh and Malaysia. The Malaysian high commissioner in Dhaka, Abdul Malik Bin Abdul Aziz, and president of the Bangladesh-Malaysia Chamber of Commerce and Industry Salahuddin Kasem Khan spoke at the function. Mohd Salah Uddin, managing director of Xenovalley, and Hj Othman Bin Hj Sulong, executive chairman of the Service Master, signed the MoU on behalf of their respective companies. The proposed 100MW gas fired plant will have an estimated investment of $100 million and it will be established at the Pink City- Xenovalley’s proposed housing project in Dhaka.
Source— New Age
Sale of notebook PC on the increase at Dhaka
The sale of notebook personal computer is on the rise although computer hardware is seeing a dull business in local market at the beginning of this year, said traders at BCS Computer City, the largest computer market in the country. Students are the main buyers of notebook PCs these days besides increasing number of corporate users in the country.
Computer traders said the people are turning their eyes to notebook PC as it is more
user-friendly than desktop computer. According to information of different ICT professional trade bodies, at present there are about five million PC users and three million internet users in the country and the number of users is gradually increasing.
Some large computer shops at the BCS computer market said they are selling, on an average, 5-8 personal computers per day and 80 per cent of them are notebook PCs.
Momenoor Rashid, marketing officer of Computer Source Limited, said they are selling different configuration notebook PC of HP brand at prices ranging between Tk 48,750 and Tk 1,20,000.
HP Compaq Presario, model C702TU notebook PC, is priced at Tk 48,750, HP model V6602TU at Tk 68,900 and HP 520 at Tk 56,200, he said, adding that these are selling well.
‘Our company is selling some HP business series laptops like HP Compaq nx8420, at Tk 1,03,000, HP Compaq nc6400 at Tk 1,03,500 and HP Compaq nx6310 at Tk 81,500.’
Other brand laptops also selling well are Asus, Accer, Dell and Toshiba.
Daffodil Computer has also started selling Daffodil brand laptops recently.
Mohammad Ferdous, assistant manager (sales) of Flora Limited, said the trend of
using computer has been changed these days; people are not using computer for multimedia purposes like playing games or watching movies at home.
Many students particularly at graduate level are using computer for study purposes, said, adding that the number of users is also increasing in business sector like short and medium enterprises as well as in the government body at union and upazila levels.
Ferdous said that they are getting more order from the government bodies at union and upazila levels, LGRD ministry, different UN offices, NGOs and short and medium enterprises apart from large corporate users.
Users prefer clone PC to brand PC because they can change different hardware according to their demand in the clone PC, said the computer traders.
Desktop computer mainly clone PC is selling at prices ranging Tk 25,000 and Tk 35,000 while the prices of brand desktop computer vary from Tk 35,000 and above.
The prices of different computer hardware like hard disk, processor, RAM, AGP card, DVD writer, monitor, key board, mouse and other accessories fluctuate from Tk 100-Tk 500, said the traders.
Ferdous said computer business was dull at the beginning of the year but the traders hoped that it would get momentum from the next month as the computer fair is going to take place in the 3rd week of February.
Mofizur Rahman of Dolphin Computers said, ‘We make a good sale every year during the fair season as people wait for the computer fair to get discounts and offers.’
Computer traders said
there is growing demand for scanner, printer, digital camera, photocopier, MP3 and MP4 players and pen drives both from businesspeople and individuals.
Source: Newage
