Dhaka, Sept 19 (UNB) - Al-Arafah Islami Bank Limited (AIBL) has opened its 164th Agent Banking outlet at Krishnanagar Bazar of Nabinagar upazila in Brahmanbaria district recently.

AIBL Executive Vice-president and Head of Agent Banking Division Abed Ahmed Khan inaugurated the outlet as the chief guest, said a press release on Wednesday. 

Among others, AIBL Nabinagar branch Manager Md Abdul Matin Patwary and Krishnanagar union parishad Chairman Md Zillur Rahman were present at the inauguration ceremony with agent of the outlet Md Mozammel Haque in the chair. 

From the Agent Banking outlet, customers can open accounts, deposit and withdraw money, collect remittance, check account balance, transfer funds, apply for investment, collect sanctions, pay utility bills, pay installments and do all other banking activities more easily.
 

Dhaka, Sep 19 (UNB) - The local electronics giant Walton started the 3rd season of its digital campaign across the country from the first day of the current month witnessing huge customers’ responses towards the registration of the purchased appliances during the campaign’s previous two seasons of this year.

Under the campaign’s third season, customers of Walton fridges, LED televisions and air conditioners will get brand new cars, motorbikes, various sorts of electronics and electrical appliances or sure cash backs through registering the newly purchased appliances from any Walton Plaza or distributor outlet across the country.

Customers enjoyed the same offers during the campaign’s Season-2.  

To accelerate the initiative of building customers database for delivering online based swift and best after sales service to the users, Walton is conducting ‘Digital Campaign’ across the country. Prior to Season-3, this year Walton conducted the campaign’s Season 1 from April 1 to June 30 and the Season-2 from July 1 to August 30.

During the Season-2, total of five customers across the country received new cars through purchasing and registering Walton brand fridges. They are: a member of Bangladesh Police at Dhaka Aradhan Chandra Shaha, a housewife of Chattagram District Shima Shill, a farmer of Rangpur District Titu Miah, a shopkeeper of Rangunia in Chattagram Tishu Das and a farmer Narsingdi’s farmer Abu Taher. In addition, thousands of customers got free products and sure cash backs.

Under the offers of Season-1, Tanjin Sultana Nipu from Shariatpur District, Babul Khan from Gazipur District, Mahmudul Hasan from Dinajpur District and Md Jahurul Islam from Gaibandha District got free air tickets of America-Dhaka-America and Russia-Dhaka-Russia from the purchase of Walton products. 

Rakibul Hossain, convener of Walton Digital Campaign, said, the previous two seasons of the digital campaign received sound customers’ response towards the registration of purchased appliances. As a result, the process of building strong database has been accelerated, he added.

To sustain the buyers’ eagerness in registering their purchased products, Walton started the campaign’s third season, he noted and expected that the third season will also be successful like the campaign’s previous two seasons.

Ariful Ambia, deputy executive director of Walton Group, said details of the customers and their purchased products including the name of customer, contact number and the model number of the product are being stored on a server through the product’s registration.

As a result, he said the customers can seek post sales services browsing the Walton developed web page http://support.waltonbd.com and they can see the status of the product online.

Beijing, Sep 19 (AP/UNB)  — China unveiled a slew of changes under mounting pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump over technology.

Beijing promised to cut tariffs, open its auto industry and buy American exports. But none of that was what Trump wanted: An end to development policies Washington says are based on theft of know-how and might erode U.S. industrial leadership.

Exporters scrambled to replace lost orders after Trump pulled the trigger in July with his first round of tariff hikes on $50 billion of Chinese imports. Waves of job losses loom over factory towns. So far, however, Chinese leaders express confidence in their $12 trillion-a-year economy and are refusing to budge on tactics they see as a path to prosperity and global influence.

The communist leadership appears no more likely to back down after Trump escalated their dispute Monday by approving penalties on an additional $200 billion of Chinese goods, according to economists, political analysts and business groups.

"Contrary to views in Washington, China can — and will — dig its heels in," said the chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, William Zarit, in a statement. "We are not optimistic about the prospect for a resolution in the short term."

Trump's complaints strike at the heart of the Communist Party's view of itself as economic development leader — a venture capital investor on a national scale, boldly creating new industries.

That role has gained prominence since President Xi Jinping took power in 2012, despite the party's 2013 pledge to give market forces a "decisive role" in the state-dominated economy.

Reform advocates complain state-owned companies that dominate banking, energy and other industries are getting bigger. They say that ignores the lessons of three decades of market-style changes that propelled China's economic boom.

Beijing is still figuring out what Washington wants, said Citigroup economist Li-Gang Liu.

"The bottom line from the U.S. side is not clear," Liu said in an email. "Without clarity as to what President Trump wants from the Chinese exactly, it is difficult to see any progress ahead."

The ruling party sees initiatives including "Made in China 2025," which calls for state-led creation of global champions in robotics, electric cars and other fields, as essential for raising incomes for China's poor majority and restoring the country to its historic status as a technology and cultural leader.

Washington, Europe and other trading partners complain that explicitly nationalistic goals of creating Chinese global brands and promise subsidies to local competitors violate Beijing's promises to treat companies equally. American officials also say Beijing steals or pressures foreign companies to hand over technology.

While rebuffing U.S. pressure, Beijing has unveiled other changes long sought by its trading partners.

The government announced in April it would allow full ownership of electric car manufacturers beginning this year and lift all ownership caps in the industry by 2020. Beijing agreed to join the European Union in proposing reforms of the World Trade Organization, which Washington complains is antiquated and unable to cope with Chinese-style challenges.

Chinese leaders appear to be wrestling with how to present their plans in a way that causes less foreign opposition, said Paul Haenle, director of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy. He said there was "considerable debate" about how to handle Washington at the leaders' annual summer retreat at the seaside resort of Beidaihe.

"I do think there is some internal debate about, Did we handle this right? Is there some way we can acknowledge to the U.S. side and others that we recognize there are changes we need to make?" said Haenle. But doing that without looking like Chinese leaders are "caving in to the United States will be a difficult endeavor to pull off."

Chinese leaders might have hoped cooperating on North Korea would win over Trump. But he went ahead with tariff hikes even after Beijing joined the "maximum pressure" campaign on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to give up nuclear weapons and Xi skipped the regime's 70th anniversary festivities this month.

"I don't think they have any great hopes that Trump is going to be any easier on them," said Haenle.

Beijing's conviction that it needs to accelerate technology development was reinforced by this year's near-death of ZTE Corp., one of China's biggest tech companies, said Citigroup's Liu.

ZTE announced it might shut down after Washington imposed a seven-year ban on sales of U.S. components and technology to the state-owned manufacturer of telecoms equipment, citing its exports to North Korea and Iran. To regain access, ZTE agreed to pay a $1 billion fine, replace its executive team and embed a U.S.-chosen compliance team in the company.

Chinese leaders realized "they don't have core technology," said Liu. "Made in China 2025" has "become more important than before and will be accelerated."

Some Chinese reform advocates see a possible way out: Restructure "Made in China 2025" and other initiatives to make them more market-oriented and strip out subsidies that irk Washington and other governments. They say that would pay dividends for China by encouraging creativity and efficiency through competition.

"That would be nothing more than promising further opening and reform. Government interference in business would be corrected," said Hu Xingdou, an economist in Beijing. "These are all good for the Chinese people."

Beijing might hope Trump will "move to a more conciliatory position," especially if his Republican Party suffers setbacks in November elections, said Haenle. But he said they doubt they know enough about American politics to try to influence the outcome by offering concessions.

The impact on China has been smaller than some American leaders hoped.

Monday's latest tariff hike might trim China's economic growth by 0.3 to 0.5 percentage points over the next year, Lillian Li of Moody's rating agency said in a report. But government stimulus spending and easier credit should offset that, leaving China's growth forecast unchanged at 6.6 percent this year and 6.4 percent in 2019, she said.

Citigroup estimates the first U.S. tariffs on $50 billion of Chinese goods will wipe out about 881,000 industrial jobs. That could rise to 3.5 million additional lost jobs over three to five years if the tariffs on $200 billion of imports increase to 25 percent, it said.

The dispute has a silver lining for some Chinese companies as some local governments act on longstanding complaints by cutting taxes and fees and simplifying bureaucracy.

Guangdong province, an export center adjacent to Hong Kong, announced changes on Sept. 10 that it said would cut costs for businesses there by 200 billion yuan ($31 billion) in 2018-20.

"We believe Chinese industries will come out of the trade war stronger than before," said Citigroup's Liu.

Dhaka, Sept 18 (UNB) - Grameen Nippon, the Japanese version of Grameen Bank, has recently been launched in Tokyo of Japan aiming to reduce the economic gap in the society.

Masahiro Kan, the founder and President of Grameen Nippon, is the former Executive Director for Japan at World Bank and former executive director of African Development Bank. He has been working with the Ministry of Finance in Japan. 

He is also a Professor at Meiji Gakuin University, said a press release. 

Grameen Nippon, a microfinance institution, will address the issues of poverty and inequality in Japan following the microcredit approach pioneered by Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus in Bangladesh.

Grameen Nippon will provide loans at low-interest rates without collateral to those seeking support to manage and overcome their financial challenges. It will support business development and growth as well as provide employment-seeking supports. 

Professo Yunus in a message on the occasion has congratulated Masahiro Kan and Grameen Nippon on their new journey and hoped that they will get all the support from Japanese people, corporate, banks and the government to help the organisation reach their destination to create a poverty-free society in Japan.
 

Washington, Sep 18 (AP/UNB)  — The Trump administration will impose tariffs on $200 billion more in Chinese goods starting next week, escalating a trade war between the world's two biggest economies and potentially raising prices on goods ranging from handbags to bicycle tires.

The tariffs will start at 10 percent, beginning Monday of next week, and then rise to 25 percent on Jan. 1.

President Donald Trump made the announcement Monday in a move that is sure to ratchet up hostilities between Washington and Beijing. Trump has already imposed 25 percent tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese goods. And China has retaliated in kind, hitting American soybeans, among other goods, in a shot at the president's supporters in the U.S. farm belt.

Beijing has warned that it would hit an additional $60 billion in American goods if Trump ordered more tariffs. If China does retaliate, Trump threatened Monday to add a further $267 billion in Chinese imports to the target list. That would raise the total to $517 billion — covering nearly everything China sells the United States.

After a public comment period, the administration said Monday that it had withdrawn some items from its preliminary list of $200 billion in Chinese imports to be taxed, including child-safety products like bicycle helmets. And in a victory for Apple Inc. and its American customers, the administration removed smart watches and some other consumer electronics products from the list of goods to be targeted by the new tariffs.

At the same time, the administration said it remains open to negotiations with China.

"China has had many opportunities to fully address our concerns," Trump said in a statement. "I urge China's leaders to take swift action to end their country's unfair trade practices."

The two countries are fighting over Beijing's ambitions to supplant American technological supremacy. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has charged that China is using predatory tactics to obtain foreign technology. These tactics include hacking U.S. companies to steal their trade secrets and forcing them to turn over their know-how in exchange for access to the Chinese market.

Trump has also complained about America's gaping trade deficit — $336 billion last year — with China, its biggest trading partner.

In May, in fact, it looked briefly as if Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He had brokered a truce built around a Chinese offer to buy enough American farm products and liquefied natural gas to put a dent in the trade deficit. But Trump quickly backed away from the truce.

In the first two rounds of tariffs, the Trump administration took care to try to spare American consumers from the direct impact of the import taxes. The tariffs focused on industrial products, not on things Americans buy at the mall or via Amazon.

By expanding the list to $200 billion of Chinese imports, Trump risks spreading the pain to ordinary households. The administration is targeting a bewildering variety of products — from sockeye salmon to baseball gloves to bamboo mats — forcing U.S. companies to scramble for suppliers outside China, absorb the import taxes or pass along the cost to their customers.

In a filing with the government, for instance, Giant Bicycles Inc. of Newbury Park, California, noting that 94 percent of imported bicycles came from China last year, complained that "there is no way our business can shift its supply chain to a new market" to avoid the tariffs and warned "a tariff increase of this magnitude will inevitably be paid for by the American consumer."

Trump campaigned for the presidency on a pledge to tax imports and rewrite or tear up trade agreements that he said put U.S. companies and workers at a disadvantage. But many analysts say his combative actions seem unlikely to succeed.

"The president's negotiating tactics do not work well with China's way of thinking," said Sung Won Sohn, chief economist at SS Economics in Los Angeles.

Sohn said he thinks that China will retaliate against every U.S. tariff and that the back-and-forth sparring will escalate until the U.S. is taxing all Chinese imports — $524 billion last year.

Still, he said, the U.S. economy appears strong enough to withstand the damage.

"In the short term, we will have higher prices and fewer jobs than we would have had otherwise," Sohn said. "Fortunately, the U.S. economy is humming, so we don't have to worry as much about what this will do to our economy."

Sohn said the Trump administration is pursuing a legitimate goal of getting China to stop violating international trade rules but that it should have enlisted support from other trading partners, such as the European Union, Canada and Mexico, and presented Beijing with a united front.

On the contrary, Trump has picked fights with each of those trading partners — from imposing tariffs on imported steel and aluminum to demanding that Mexico and China transform the North American Free Trade Agreement into a deal more favorable to the United States.

Trump's tariffs on China raise costs and create uncertainty for companies that have built supply chains that span the Pacific Ocean. Some companies are looking to move out of China to dodge the tariffs, said Ted Murphy, a partner at the Baker McKenzie law firm. Some will likely move to other low-cost countries that aren't in the line of fire. Some will bring operations to the United States — one of Trump's goals.

For years, multinational businesses "went where the labor was cheapest," Murphy said. "Now the calculus is more complicated."