To tap growing demand for high-heeled accommodation.Bangladesh’s Unique Group, which owns Westin Dhaka, has signed a deal with Starwood Hotels and Resorts to set up two more five-star hotels in Dhaka and a third in Chittagong.
“Simultaneously, I have Starwood, one of the best hotel management companies in the world, with me, which gives me added confidence,” said Ali, also the managing director of Westin Dhaka

Two hotels to come up in downtown Dhaka are Le Meridien and The Westin Dhaka 2. The one in Chittagong will be the first five-star hotel in the port town. Construction will be completed by 2012.

Initially, the company plans to invest around Tk 2,000 crore for expansion, while Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide will be the managing company for all three hotels.At present, the local market for five-star hotels is increasing at a rate of 15 percent a year, and it will double in the next three years,” said Mohammad Noor Ali, managing director of Unique Group.

“So as an investor, I have to look to the future and plan on capturing the country’s hospitality business in the long run. And that is the main reason behind this expansion plan.”

Industry experts said Dhaka now has around 1,250 five-star rooms. The hotels reach full occupancy only in winter, and an average occupancy rate of around 75 percent can easily make the business profitable.
“Simultaneously, I have Starwood, one of the best hotel management companies in the world, with me, which gives me added confidence,” said Ali, also the managing director of Westin Dhaka.

In recent years, the hospitality sector in Bangladesh has boomed in the five-star hotel segment. Three new five-star hotels opened in Dhaka in the past four years, taking the number to five.

Industry experts said the capital city now has around 1,250 five-star rooms. The hotels reach full occupancy only in winter and an average occupancy rate of around 75 percent can easily make the business profitable, they added.

“One of the drivers of growth has been the increase in foreign business people visiting the country, as both the garments and telecom industries have taken off,” said Ali.

“Apart from that, the geographical location of these hotels will also exploit the proximity to airport and the garment belt in Ashulia-Savar, as well as the headquarters of the major mobile telecom operators,” he said. “The country’s diplomatic zone is also near our hotels.”

Ali is optimistic about profiting from the hotel in Chittagong, as the number of affluent visitors, including investors, top officials from banks and port, and shipping businessmen, are increasing fast in the region.

The company is conducting studies to assess demand for accommodation and the regular flow of guests to the port city. The room rent for the Westin in Chittagong will be slightly lower than in Dhaka, said the Unique Group chief.

The annual turnover of Westin Dhaka was Tk 106 crore, and the operating profit was around Tk 47 crore in 2008, which grew by 20 percent in 2009, Ali said.

The 235-room Westin has an average occupancy of 80 percent, while the hotel has gained a 25 percent share of the total market.

The first ever Digital Innovation Fair for 3 days begins in the city yesterday with a view to encouraging people to use Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for building a ‘Digital Bangladesh’.The fair is a step towards providing extensive citizen services to citizen. Through the fair, citizens will be aware of the extensive e-services at their doorsteps. Also, citizens will be benefited in terms of reduced transaction time.

Ministry of Science and Information and Communication Technology and Access to Information Programme of the Prime Minister’s office are jointly organising the fair.

The fair will remain open to public from 10:00am to 8:00pm daily up to Saturday.

President Zillur Rahman and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina have issued separate messages on the occasion of the fair.

In his message, Zillur said the role of information and communication technology is of paramount importance in modern human civilisation.

“The present government, under the able and dynamic leadership of Hasina, has taken timely initiative to build an IT-based Digital Bangladesh by 2021,” the President said.

In her message, Hasina said the government has taken the programme to reach the services of ICT to the doorsteps of people to build a Digital Bangladesh by 2021.

“There is no scope to keep away from technology in present days. Technology will have to be used for the welfare of mankind and bringing dynamism and transparency in trade and commerce and administration,” she said.
Access to Information Programme (AIP) Foundation was established on October 23, 1996 in Sofia, Bulgaria by journalists, lawyers, sociologists, and economists who work in the area of human rights. They joined efforts to promote the right to information and initiate a public debate on related issues.

Access to Information Programme Foundation is a non-governmental organization registered by the Sofia City Court
Reg. #13 849/96. Since Oct. 30, 2002, AIP is in the Register of Organizations Working in Public Interest at the Ministry of Justice with Reg. # 20021030027.

The mission of AIP is to facilitate implementation of Article 41 of the Bulgarian Constitution which establishes the right of information:

(1) Everyone shall be entitled to seek, obtain and disseminate information. This right shall not be exercised to the detriment of the rights and reputation of others, or to the detriment of national security, public order, public health and morality.
(2) Citizens shall be entitled to obtain information from state bodies and agencies on any matter of legitimate interest to them which is not a state or official secret and does not affect the rights of others.

In 2005, the Atlas Economic Research Foundation recognized Access to Information Programme with two of the most prestigious awards for establishing and promoting the principles of democracy and market economy: The Templeton Freedom Prize for Ethics and Values and The Templeton Freedom Award for Institute Excellence. The Awards were presented to AIP Executive Director, Gergana Jouleva, PhD at the Fifth Freedom Forum, organized by the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, USA.

The goals of AIP are:
• To encourage individual and public demand for information through civic education in-the-right-to-know area,
• To work for transparency of government at different levels, advocating a more open supply of information,
• To facilitate the execution of the right to know.

Access to Information Programme is a co-founder and member of the International Freedom of Information Advocates Network (FOIAnet)
Access to information Programme is a founding member of the European Civil Liberties Network
Access to Information Programme is an associate member of the European Citizen Action Service
Access to Information Programme is a member of network The Access Initiative the
Access to Information Programme is a member of the Network of Democracy Research Institutes

Dhaka Elevated Expressway is going to be practicale!!! through receiving the proposal from local and foreign companies Dhaka Elevated Expressway project is blooming to reality soon.

Ministry of Communications of Present govment initiated Dhaka Elevated Expressway of 32km . Through cabinet meeting held 17 june 2009 passed the proposal of the project considering as Public Private Partnership (PPP) project. in the mean time the ministry took all the prework to develop the project in reality.

In part of this project development 20-21  November 2009 published through newspaper for Pre-qualification Statement from the interested parties to submit proposal . As per decision 1st called last date was marked till 22 February2010 next it was marked till 4 th March 2010.

Today till 4th March 2010,  9 companies have submitted their proposal .Companies are :

          Soma Enterprise Ltd. (India), Sino-Global (USA), AR Track Hawai Rocket Rahmat (Bangladesh), Italian-Thai Development Public Coampany Ltd., (Italy-Thailand), Sikder Real Estate-KCC JV Consortium (Korea-Bangladesh), Gammon Infrastruture Projects Ltd-Bouygus Travaux Publics SA Consortium (India-France), BPHB-BCC JV (Malaysia-Bangladesh),M/S. Simplex Infrastructures Ltd ,M/S. Sri Infrastructure Finance Ltd (India) , China Railway International Ltd., (China)

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina launched web portals of the country’s 64 districts from her office on Jan 06, 2010 (Wednesday), marking the first anniversary of her government.

The web portals will play a significant role in the implementation of the government’s pledge to build a digital Bangladesh, Hasina said as she switched on the portals.

These web portals will help one to get information about each of the 64 districts across the country.

The PM said: “After forming a new government we pledged the new generation to build a digital Bangladesh.

“The inauguration of the web portals is a part of that pledge,” she said.

Hasina said the information technology aims to develop human resources, public communication, trade and commerce and reaching technology people’s doors.

She referred to steps such as forming information commission and introducing online banking.

The PM said the government will prepare web portals for all upazilas in future.

UNDP Cabinet Division and Access to Information (a2i) provided the assistance in preparing the web portals.

Bangladesh Television and Bangladesh Betar aired the programme live.

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Amar Ekushey Boi Mela -2010started .Prime minister Sheikh Hasina stressed the role of books in a nation’s development as she inaugurated the Bangla Academy’s annual Amar Ekushey Boi Mela on Monday.

She urged everyone to buy and read books, highlighting their importance in human endeavours. “The link between culture and education is a necessity for development of humanity. And books play the most important role for establishing this link.”

The prime minister requested publishers to support the works of new, young writers as well as established authors. She also assured all assistance to develop Bangla Academy into “the pride of the nation”.

She said Bangla should be made an official UN language. “Currently six languages are used for official work in the United Nations. The government is now working to include Bangla in that list. I myself address the UN in Bangla,” Hasina said.

On the long-proposed International Mother Language Institute, she said: “We took steps to construct the institute when we last formed government in 1996. The then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan laid the foundation stone of the institute.”

Hasina condemned opposition BNP for halting the work, saying, “They do not understand the real value of their mother language.”

Work had resumed on the institute under the current government, the prime minister said. “We are hoping to finish it by this month.”

She said the world-class institute will carry out research on minority languages around the globe, and create a database on endangered languages.

Hasina repeated the AL government’s pledge during their last tenure to create a cultural belt encompassing Bangla Academy, Suhrawardi Udyan and Dhaka University.

‘PRIDE OF THE NATION’

She said, “This academy has to be made the pride of the nation. For that we want dedicated workers, researchers and officials. We will provide all sort of assistance for this. There will be no shortage of funds.”

Bangla Academy director general Shamsuzzaman Khan presented a vision to make the academy a “true research organisation for Bangla language and literature”.

He said, “Until now, the academy has only published educational books. We want to move on from this and start publishing research books. We are requesting the prime minister for financial assistance for this.”

Khan said the academy had also taken steps to publish an authentic Bangla grammar book. “At present, a mixture of English and Sanskrit grammar is followed. The irregularities of the language will be eradicated once a proper Bangla grammar is established.”

The inauguration was presided over by National Professor Kabir Chowdhury and attended by culture minister Abul Kalam Azad and culture state minister Promodkumar Mankin amongst others.

After her inaugural address, Hasina opened the Language Movement Museum at the academy premises, and went on to visit stalls of the month-long fair.

This year’s book fair will see 366 organisations hosting a total of 505 stalls including 26 stalls for little magazines. Of them, around 100 stalls are set up on the street outside the Bangla Academy premises.

The director general of the academy said that there will be space for small publishing houses and individuals at the stall of the Jatiya Gronthokendro.

He also said the academy has formed a task force to keep the fairground, divided into nine sections named after language martyrs, writers and poets, free of illegal publications
Event :
The fair management committee has completed all necessary preparations, including allocation of stalls and security measures.

The fair venue was seen very busy Sunday as the publishing houses were taking the last-minute preparations. They were working round the clock to make the fair a success.
In the fair, a total of 505 stalls have been distributed among 356 institutions. As well as the publication houses, several voluntary organisations, government and non-government organisations and media houses are participating in the fair.

The fair will remain open from 3:00pm to 9:00pm daily without holidays till February 28. On holidays the gate will open at 11:00am and close at 9:00pm.

On February 21, the International Mother Language Day, the fair will open at 8:00am and continue till 10:00pm.

Book lovers will get 25 percent concession on the books published by the publishers and organisations while Bangla Academy will provide 30 percent concession on its own books.

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Different spots of the premises have been named after Rabindranath Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Dhirendranath Dutta, Abdul Karim Sahitya Bisharad and Begum Rokeya.

The corners for children and little magazine have been named after poet Sufia Kamal and writer Somen Chanda respectively

The billion-dollar projects of elevated expressway and metro rail for the capital city without detailed feasibility study is likely to bring about financial and technical debacles, said country’s leading transport experts. .

The communications ministry is pressing the government to entertain an unsolicited proposal for setting up metro rail system in the capital.,
Rejecting the communications ministry’s proposal for considering an unsolicited tender offer, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairsokayed the ministry’s other recommendation for floating an open invitation for tenders for construction of a metro rail and an elevated expressway in the capital at an estimated cost of Tk 15,000 crore.

The communications ministry on November 18 embarked on a $2-billion project with invitation for tender bidding to build a 32.5km elevated expressway on public private partnership (PPP) basis.

Prof Jamilur Reza Chowdhury, a noted civil engineer and transport expert, said the project seems to be the contractor-oriented.

“It is not understandable how the authorities will go for tender for the project without carrying out feasibility study,” he said adding, “It will be risky to proceed with such project without conducting detailed feasibility study and defining the project parameters.”

The government is interested in pursuing massive projects without exhausting any of the first-phase recommendations made in the twenty-year long Strategic Transport Plan (STP) (2004-2024).

The first-phase recommended projects in the STP include elevated way reviews, regional highway connections, Panthapath to Rampura highway, Tejgaon airport tunnel, bus route priority measures and mass rapid transit (MRT) preparatory works.

MRT system may be a long-term solution but effective traffic and pedestrian management and recovery of the existing road-width will significantly improve the traffic situation immediately, said Jamilur Reza who headed a 31-member advisory committee on STP.

The cabinet committee on economic affairs on October 20 gave a go-ahead to float open invitations for tenders for construction of a metro rail and an elevated expressway at an estimated cost of Tk 15,000 crore.

The committee also approved exemption from bidding prosedures in Private Infrastructure Committee, Major Terms and Conditions Committee and Bangladesh Private Sector Infrastructure Guidelines on a plea of saving time in selection process.

Nazrul Islam, executive director of Infrastructure Investment Facilitation Centre (IIFC) under Economic Relations Division, who was the team leader of preparing Private Sector Infrastructure Guidelines said, “Such multi-billion projects require adequate attention and care.”

Dr M Rahmatullah, policy adviser of Transport Sector Management Reform of the planning commission, said the initiative for mass rapid transit is a broad step but embarking on such a mega project without feasibility study will be seriously risky.

“An independent feasibility study by a credible organisation should have been in place before embarking on such a mega project,” he said.

“A study [report] would be the government’s strength, reference and basis for negotiation with the bidders,” he added.

The government cannot evaluate the bidder’s proposal and ascertain the actual costs of building the infrastructure without a feasibility study, said Rahmatullah.

Absence of the study may bring a disaster with giving scope for an irregular deal in favour of the contractor to make the project faulty leaving many liabilities on the government, he said.

Prof Alamgir Mojibul Hoque of Buet, who led the counterpart consulting team on making STP said, “The mega projects without feasibility study will not only increase construction costs but also may fail to meet people’s requirement. It may even put an undesirable structure in place unable to serve the purpose.”

The government should have first put in place bus rapid transit (BRT), proper traffic and parking management, optimum use of the existing road spaces, and removal of bottlenecks and small-scale improvement of traffic network.

Replying to a query, Communications Minister Syed Abul Hossain told this correspondent at a seminar on November 3 that the strategic transport plan stands as a feasibility report for such projects.

Strategic transport plan has many things to provide every detail on each recommended project, he said.

“It will take a long time if we follow the existing rules,” said Hossain adding, “We need waiver of rules to complete the mega projects within tenure of the incumbent government.”

A party’s popularity in Dhaka decides the party’s fate in the elections, Hossain said, so their political commitment is to make the project happen within their tenure.

On November 8, the minister told The Daily Star that the tender documents include a provision that the bidders will have to conduct their own feasibility study for the elevated way project.

Rahmatullah said, “Strategic transport plan is not a feasibility study. It is a set of strategic and policy recommendations. It itself calls for feasibility study for such projects.”

The contractors in their feasibility study will naturally press for an extended concession period, as the government will not have scope to assess the concessions demanded by the contractors, he said.

The Strategic Transport Plan, framed in 2005 by The Louis Berger Group, USA and Bangladesh Consultants Ltd and approved in March 2008 is just a strategic plan, said Mojibul Hoqu

India’s Marico Ltd (MRCO.BO: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Wednesday its unit in Bangladesh will make an initial public offer (IPO) of about 1.49 million shares at 90 taka a share, to raise 135 million taka ($1.95 million).India’s Marico Ltd (MRCO.BO: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Wednesday its unit in Bangladesh will make an initial public offer (IPO) of about 1.49 million shares at 90 taka a share, to raise 135 million taka ($1.95 million).

Mumbai:India’s largest producer of coconut hair oil, Marico Ltd, on Wednesday announced an initial public offering, or IPO, for its Bangladesh subsidiary, which will list on the Dhaka and Chittagong exchanges. Marico is looking to raise at least $2 million (Rs9.78 crore at current rates) through the IPO, which will make it the first Indian firm to have a listed subsidiary in Bangladesh.
Marico’s Milind Sarwate unveils the Bangladesh IPO strategy
“The amount raised is not very large and we don’t need the money,” said Milind Sarwate, head, human resources and strategy, at Marico. The main objective of the listing was to give its Bangladeshi arm a “local flavour”, he said, adding: “It’s more about visibility and branding.”
Marico Bangladesh Ltd has built a sizeable business in the seven years it has been in that country, with sales of Rs212 crore in 2008-09, and has been growing at a compounded annual growth rate of 70% for the past three years. The parent group had revenue of Rs2,388.4 crore for the fiscal year ended March 2009, with overseas businesses contributing 15%.
Marico will sell 1.49 million shares, or 5% of the subsidiary’s equity capital, at 90 taka (about Rs65) per share in August, the company said in a statement to the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). Taka is the currency of Bangladesh.
Marico’s stock on BSE closed on Wednesday at Rs80.70, a minuscule gain of 0.3%. The BSE’s bellwether Sensitive Index, or Sensex, ended at 13,769.15 points, 2.83% below the previous day’s close.
Analysts tracking the company were taken by surprise, given the small amount to be raised and because the operations in Bangladesh do not require any significant capital infusion.
One analyst with a domestic brokerage, who didn’t want to be named, said the money could be planned for “some acquisitions there”.
The Bangladesh capital market, unlike India’s, has no free pricing structure and is similar to what India had until the late 1980s, in which companies, under the Controller of Capital Issues, had to sell shares at low forward multiples.

IT WAS EKUSAY GRONTO MELA  Muktodhara Publishing house started a little sell in front of Bangla Academy in the 21st February 1972,the Shaheed Day, later International Mother Language Day. Chittaranjan Saha of Muktodhara took the initiative. Later, other book publishers joined there unofficially. Gradually it became official and the most popular book fair of Bangladesh, now famous as Ekusay Boi Mela ,Its not only a fair its has become as a  national festival ,

Hundreds of people of all ages gathered at the Amar Ekushey Boi Mela on Bangla Academy premises in a festive mood , as it was Pahela Falgun, the first day of spring.

Scores of book lovers in colourful traditional clothes thronged the bookstalls while many were seen waiting in long queues for hours to enter the fair venue. The culture of Bangladesh is fully bloomed here. writers from various thought is presenting their books to a big audiance , almost 20 thousand visitors visit a day , The reader from the whole contry come to visit the fair.

The fair has 460 stalls of 297 publishing houses. The number of stalls was 362 by 236 publishing houses last year.

 At the openning ceremony ,Sheikh Hasina, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh,   stressed the need for building up a knowledge-based advanced and open thinking society for upholding the dignity of the mother language

Its also a very good news that the reader from various corner who miss it they also can get the taste of the book fair through web www.boi-mela.com . they also can purchase their choiceable book through the web.

General Moin U Ahmed Also published with his own writting “Santir Sopney”( Dream for Peace)
The demand of little magazines has also increased significantly this year. Visitors were seen flocking to the circular stalls under the two banyan trees on the book fair premises