The Chittagong Chamber of Commerce & Industry (CCCI), established in 1959, is a premier Chamber of Bangladesh. It provides a wide spectrum of services to the trade and industry and acts as a catalyst for growth of business in the country.

The Chamber has been all along very keen to address the requirements of the commercial capital and aspirations of entrepreneurs so that a congenial atmosphere is assured for growth of trade, industry & economy including induction of more FDI to some potential sectors that offer alluring profit guarantee. As part of its various trade promotional activities, CCCI has been arranging Chittagong International Trade Fair (CITF) – the largest international trade fair in the country for the last fifteen consecutive years and the event has been a total success with respect to enthusiastic participation by leading local, foreign and multinational business & manufacturing enterprises of Asia, Europe, USA and African countries.

Since its humble striding in 1992, CITF has created a tremendous enthusiasm among the exhibitors & visitors registering a significant growth in terms of participants, sales and promotion of products/services. With the passage of time, the event has emerged as the largest international trade fair of the country in term of participation.

Raising Tea Demandin Bangladesh-May overflow export.Bangladesh, known as a tea-exporting country, will turn into a tea-importing one within the next five years due to the fast-growing domestic demand.

?Some 58 million kilograms of tea are produced in the country every year of which 10-12 percent are exported,? Dr Mohammed Ataur Rahman, former Manager of Forestry and Subsidiary Crops of James Finlay (Bangladesh) Limited told UNB.

Referring to the growing habit of taking tea by people, Dr Mohammed Ataur Rahman said Bangladesh used to export 80 percent of its produced tea barely 20 years back when local tea consumption was very low. ?The country will have to import tea if its people start taking more than one cup of tea regularly,? he said.

Dr Mohammed Ataur Rahman, also Director of Education for Sustainability and Centre for Global Environmental Culture (CGEC) of the IUBAT-International University of Business Agriculture and Technology, has a book on tea to his credit.

The book titled ?Improvement of Tea: Environment and Cultural Practices? was published recently.

In his book, he described that Bangladeshi tea is characterized by strong liquor and moderate flavor. ?About seventeen promising well-suited clones are developed by Bangladesh Tea Research Institute and those are being propagated quickly and cultivated in tea estates.?

Besides, the book said, high-yielding clones have also been introduced from India, China and Kenya. In most cases, high-yield, flavor and disease resistance parameters are considered with a hope to increase the yield.

Emphasizing the need for improving the yield, he suggested that natural habitat, climatic condition, soil and associate flora, manpower, transportation, power and fuel should also be considered along with high yielding, disease resistant and good liquored Jat (variety) for sustainable tea cultivation.

Dr Rahman, who obtained his PhD degree on Forestry and Environment, from California, USA, mentioned that indiscriminate use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides can bring quick benefit but at the cost of soil health, natural associate flora and fauna as well as environment. ?Hence, in the long run, the ultimate loss will become many times more than the benefits.?

All options should be explored to increase the yield and production, he said adding that Bangladesh has the materials, market and manpower and it is only the thought to be implied for the improvement of tea with the existing facilities to achieve the maximum yield. ?Therefore, the future of Bangladesh tea depends on the planning of research at appropriate direction.?

Terming tea as the cheapest versatile natural beverage in the world, Dr Rahman mentioned that tea has medicinal and health values and international acceptability.

He said various age groups in all sections of society consume tea and some three billion cups of tea are consumed daily worldwide. ?Tea is business to many; it?s a partner in progress and development and a major item of trade,? he said, adding that it?s also part and parcel of research, art and literature.

In his book, Dr Ataur mentioned that tea, especially green tea, has already been proved as a great therapeutic contains powerful anti-oxidants like catechins, Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), gallotannin and polyphenols, which are beneficial in counteracting a number of fatal diseases like breast and ovarian cancers, tumors and heart diseases.

Dr Ataur said drinking of 8-10 cups of green tea a day is beneficial against coronary heart attacks, obesity, Alzheimer disease, diarrhoea and gastro-intestinal diseases. ?As to the future, researchers hope to find out more about how specific components in tea are used by the body and the mechanism by which they may contribute to disease prevention.?

Describing further the benefits of tea, he said beauticians use tealeaves for hair dyeing. Tea liquor of thick consistency mixed with henna, egg, lime and oil that color the hair dark, bright- the luster comes from tea.

Tea is also a good conditioner for hair after shampoo. It imparts a healthy sheen along with body. For faded and discolored clothes, immersion in tea decoction, it turns old into new.

The country’s palm oil import in 2009 crossed the million tonnes mark to a total of 1,023,128 tonnes including crude and refined palm oil, reports BSS.

Malaysian Palm oil marketing sources said in Dhaka the country saw a record growth in import of edible oil last year, mainly palm oil joining the million tonnes’ importers club.

Import grew by a record 25.39 per cent from January to December last year compared to that in previous 2008, sources said further.

Meanwhile, the offer of a new credit line announced during a conference of Malaysian Palm Oil Council held recently in Dhaka to support further market expansion of palm oil in Bangladesh is likely to bring a new boost to its imports.

The commerce minister of Bangladesh is expected to visit Malaysia soon, the source said adding detailed might be worked out on this credit line issue centring the forthcoming visit.

Previous :Palm oil : Malaysia to stop turn down In Palm Oil Exports To Bangladesh
Bonus for producer of palm oil
Palm oil is the most widely used edible oil in the world. Last year, about 40 million tons of it was consumed and 500,000 tons in Britain alone.

In developing countries it is used mainly as a cooking ingredient, but in the West it is used by the major food manufacturers to make all those things people love to eat, even if they know they shouldn’t – cakes, biscuits, crisps, ice-cream and so on. It is also used to produce toiletries, but 90 per cent goes into foodstuffs.

It is even used in bread and margarine. In fact, if a food product lists vegetable oil as an ingredient, the chances are that it is palm oil.

The oil is in such high demand because it is cheaper to produce than any other. Palms grow fast and the yield on the crop is ten times that of its nearest rival, soy. Palm oil has also grown in popularity recently because it does not contain trans-fats, which have been linked to heart disease.
Asian Plantations (Traded on: AIM, Ticker: PALM) does none of these things. The company joined Aim in November last year and operates from Sarawak in Malaysia. Malaysia banned the conversion of forest into agricultural land 15 years ago, so the sites that Asian Plantations owns have been officially designated for farming.

In most of Malaysia, the land suitable for palm oil production has already been snapped up, but Sarawak is remote and opportunities still exist, particularly for well-connected entrepreneurs.

Asian Plantations is run by two chief executives – Dennis Melka, a financier who has spent the past decade in south-east Asia, and Graeme Brown, a plantations and agriculture expert who is married to the daughter of one of the leading families in Sarawak.

This means the company combines financial know-how, farming expertise and local connections. The group owns more than 10,000 hectares, some of which were acquired last month and are already producing oil.

The rest of the land is at an earlier stage. Asian Plantations has planted out 2,000 hectares and these should start to deliver oil late next year.

Palms spend the first nine months of their life in a nursery and the first harvest comes 18 months later. Supply rises steadily for about seven years and the palms will deliver at that rate for another 18 years or so.

Asian Plantations expects to have planted a further 2,000 hectares by 2011 and the profits should start flowing in 2012. Brown is also something of a pioneer, having invented a way of sterilising palm fruit in a way that is more efficient, less labour intensive and more environmentally friendly than other methods as it converts the methane produced into electricity to power the process.

Midas verdict: Asian Plantations is a young company and, as such, there are risks attached. The business may well try to raise more money from shareholders and there may be moments when the market takes against the stock because the price of palm oil dips, for example.

On the plus side, the firm is well run and is involved in the production of a crop for which demand continues to increase as global populations grow.

China and India are two of the biggest consumers of palm oil and, as they become richer, their desire for processed foods that use the oil will only increase.

Bangladesh has a good affiliation with Malaysia including all business activities.Malaysia exports palm oil to Bangladesh for meeting domestic demand.

Malaysia is rising attempts to overturn the decline pattern in exports of palm oil to Bangladesh, which has dropped drastically this year compared to 2008.

Last year, 217,264 metric tonnes of palm oil were exported to Bangladesh, but from January to October this year, the export figures stood at only 56,726 metric tonnes, worth RM137 million.

“We are stepping up efforts by hosting trade fairs and exhibitions to steer forward. We hope in the future Malaysia’s level of share in Bangladesh market, which is 30 per cent, should increase,” Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Tan Sri Bernard Dompok told the media in Dhaka Saturday.

“The potential is huge here (Bangladesh), it will only get better with increasing prosperity and requirement for oil and fats,” he said.

According to officials, the drastic drop in exports last year was due to defaults by Bangladeshi buyers as the commodity price reached an upward trend, rising as high as RM4,600 per metric tonne in March 2008.

Bangladesh, with a population of about 160 million people, imports over one million metric tones of palm oil to meet its growing domestic demand, and Malaysia had been a regular supplier.

On the other hand, of late Indonesia had also emerged as a major exporter to Bangladesh.

“There are plenty of opportunities for Malaysian private sector players to explore in Bangladesh,” Dompok said.

“Demand is increasing with tandem of economic growth and income. Current per capita consumption stands at 8.6 kg compared to the world’s average consumption of 22 kg,” he said.

He also asked the Bangladeshi government to utilise the Palm Oil Credit Payment Arrangement (POCPA), which was stopped some time ago.

The minister is in Dhaka to celebrate the opening Malaysia-Bangladesh Palm Oil Trade Fair and Seminar 2009 (POTS), jointly organised by Malaysia Palm Oil Council (MPOC) and Malaysia Palm Oil Board (MPOB).

Nationalized Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) will buy 60,000 tonnes of diesel from a dealer in Egypt for using up during January to June period of next year, a senior energy official said on Saturday.

The official said that “The BPC will import the diesel from Egypt-based Middle East Oil Refineries (MIDOR) to diversify sources of fuel as the demand is rising sharply.”

He said MIDOR had approved Bangladesh’s proposal to sell diesel at a premium of $3.90 per barrel, which is lower than the rates offered by Gulf refineries.

In February 2008, the BPC imported some 30,000 tonnes of diesel from the Egyptian company when it agreed to double the shipment, the official said.

The BPC, the country’s sole importer and distributor of oil and fuels, last week completed negotiations with the state-run Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) to buy more than 1 million tonnes of refined oil at a cost of $580 million.

The KPC, a major source of refined products for the BPC, has lowered the premium rate for diesel to $3.90 per barrel from the previous $4.90.

It imports between 3.4 million and 3.8 million tonnes of oil annually, including about 1.4 million tonnes of rudimentary oil at a cost of $2 billion to $3 billion.

The import payment pressures has declined gradually  as prices of commodities including fuel oil have been falling in the global market  though  the overall imports of Bangladesh grew by 18 per cent in the first seven months of the current fiscal .

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