Bangladesh's Corporate World

 Country's leading drug manufacturer Beximco Pharmaceuticals Ltd.  will import 10,00,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccine for the private sector. This is in addition to the 3,00,00,000 doses for the government level. The additional doses will also arrive in the first phase, and Beximco will make the vaccine available to both the private sector frontliners and the general populace. Each dose will have a retail price of around Tk1,200 and any fees imposed by the government will be applicable too. Speaking with The Business Standard , Beximco Pharma's Chief Operating Officer Rabbur Reza said, "We have confirmed additional orders for Covid-19 vaccine, and imports might increase in the coming days." The vaccine doses imported at the government level will be distributed on a priority basis among frontliners such as public health workers, and people aged 60 and older. Beximco Pharma said the additional doses are being imported to safeguard the private sector frontliners. However, t...

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal expressed high optimism that more foreign direct investment will come in the country in the coming days since necessary physical infrastructures are being built in Bangladesh. Prime Minister’s Private Sector Industry and Investment Affairs Adviser Salman F Rahman agreed to the Finance Minister's optimism. The Finance Minister addressed the 4th Founding Anniversary of Bangladesh Investment Development Authority virtually as the chief guest and said “I believe that more investment will come in the country since necessary physical infrastructures have been built here and also are being built. Now we’ll have to look into non-physical infrastructures as we’ll have to touch the hearts of people (investors). Mentioning that the FDI trend of Bangladesh is still low compared to the other countries, the Finance Minister said, “All the investors including local and foreign ones are equal to the government and they won’t be subject to any discrimination. They...

Beximco Pharma, is a generic drug player committed to providing access to affordable medicines. It's state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities have been accredited by the regulatory authorities of USA, Australia, European Union, Canada, and Brazil, among others, and it currently focuses on building presence in many emerging and developed markets around the world. The company received US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for flecainide acetate 50mg, 100mg and 150mg tablets. The company announced this last week. Flecainide acetate is the generic equivalent to 3M Pharmaceuticals' 'Tambocor'. Beximco Pharma was founded in 1976 and started operations in 1980, manufacturing products under the licenses of Bayer AG of Germany and Upjohn Inc. of United States. Today Beximco Pharma manufactures and markets its own branded generics for several diseases including AIDS, cancer, asthma, hypertension, and diabetes for both national and international markets. It was the first...

  Salman F Rahman MP, chairman of the board of directors of the IFIC Bank Limited, presides over the 43rd annual general meeting (AGM) of the bank. Vice Chairman Ahmed Shayan Fazlur Rahman , Directors of the bank -- Anwaruzzaman Chowdhury, Rabeya Jamali, ARM Nazmus Sakib, Quamrun Naher Ahmed, Zafar Iqbal and Managing Director and CEO of the bank M Shah A Sarwar and Company Secretary Mokammel Hoque attended the virtual meeting. Source: The Independent

Intertek entered into an exclusive services appointment and strategic partnership with BEXIMCO Group. Intertek is a leading total quality assurance provider to industries worldwide and Beximco is a diversified private sector group in Bangladesh across a wide range of industries, and one of South Asia's largest vertically integrated textile and garment companies. BEXIMCO Group, based in Dhaka, has recently set up a new PPE Industrial Park, close to their company headquarters, having exported 6.5 million PPE gowns to the USA, with a vision to become one of the major players in PPE manufacturing globally. The spread of COVID-19 has seen the demand for PPE rise significantly and as disease continues to spread throughout the globe, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has described, the chronic, global shortage of PPE as “one of the most urgent threats to our collective ability to save lives.” South Asia and Bangladesh is now emerging as the new hotspot for PPE manufacturing and have ram...

Beximco Group took business initiatives after the COVID-19 outbreak and all the initiatives proved to be right. The company that calls itself the country's largest private-sector employer turned the COVID-19 outbreak into an opportunity and showed its ability to churn out advanced products. The pharmaceutical business of Beximco Group was the first to start making and exporting a generic version of remdesivir, a drug in the spotlight as a treatment for COVID-19.The textile and apparel unit of the company, one of the largest in Bangladesh, in May 2020 exported 6.5 million medical gowns custom made to the specifications of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency. Beximco Group has a long history of doing the right thing at the right moment. It also has a history of coming forward in times of need. The group, founded by siblings Ahmed Sohail Fasihur Rahman and Salman Fazlur Rahman, began as a commodity trading house in the 1970s before expanding into sectors including energy, ba...

Commerce ministry said it would establish four specialised technology centres in economic zones with an eye to boosting export earnings through adopting new technologies. Under a project, it will establish three state-of-the-art TCs at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Shilpa Nagar in Chattogram and a specialised design and technology centre at Bangabandhu Hi-Tech City in Gazipur. To this effect, the Export Competitiveness for Jobs (EC4J) Project signed on Tuesday two land lease agreements with Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority (BEZA) and Bangladesh Hi-Tech Park Authority (BHTPA). BEZA executive member Md Abdul Mannan, BHTPA director ANM Safiqul Islam and EC4J project director Md Obaidul Azam inked the deals on their organisations' behalf at the BEZA headquarters. Commerce minister Tipu Munshi joined as the chief guest and PM's private industry and investment adviser Salman F Rahman and state minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak as special guests. BEZA executive chairman Paban Chowdhu...

Beximco Group took the opportunity to help the world in the time of COVID-19 and started manufacturing personal protective equipment. Coronavirus has changed the world. Beximco Group is trying its best. The brand is otherwise a major supplier  of Zara, Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger. Beximco Textile division exported 6.5 million medical gowns to US brand Hanes in May. It plans to export $250 million worth of protective gear this year. 60 percent of its 40,000 workers are engaged in PPE making. Bangladesh over the past two decades became the world's second-largest ready-made garment exporter after China, making clothes for the likes of Primark and H&M. Before the pandemic, it accounted for around 80 percent of the country's $40 billion annual exports and employed more than four million people, many of them women from poor rural villages. But when the world started to go into lockdown, the country's 4,500 manufacturers saw shipments plunge by a staggering 84 percent in ...

Prime minister Sheikh Hasina on announced a new stimulus package to waive Tk 2,000 crore bank interest of the people affected badly by the nationwide shutdown enforced to contain the coronavirus pandemic. The premier made the announcement while formally publishing the SSC and other equivalent exam results through a videoconference from her official Ganabhaban residence in Dhaka. She said the government earlier suspended the payment of interest of the loans for two months which the people took from the (commercial) banks for business purpose. After Bangladesh was hit by COVID-19, the government led by Prime minister Sheikh Hasina, started working out effective policies. She is assisted by her advisors including the Private Sector Industry and Investment Adviser Salman F Rahman. ‘Today, we’re declaring a new incentive package which is the 19th. Under the package, the borrowers need not to repay Tk 2,000 crore interest of the credits which they took from the banks for doing busi...

Cost of foreign import financing by the country’s local banks increased up to 2 percentage points in the last couple of months due mainly to a slump in earnings of the banks. Earnings of all scheduled banks slumped, in most of the cases turned negative in April and May, as the Bangladesh Bank asked the entities to refrain from booking interest earnings for the two months, bankers and BB officials said. Earlier, most of the foreign banks were issuing credit against imports at around 2.5 per cent to 3 per cent interest. The fall in earnings of the banks has prompted the overseas banks and financial institutions to charge up to 5 per cent interest for such credit. Some of the foreign entities were found reluctant in issuing credit against the country’s import settlement. Amid the coronavirus outbreak in the country, the central bank has introduced a number of relaxations for the bank borrowers as business and economic activities have come almost to a halt. Under the relaxations, the ban...

Bangladesh’s leading Beximco Group announced it will set up a plant in Detroit, U.S., to make masks as demand for protective gear in the U.S.The Dhaka based company, which started selling the generic version of Gilead Sciences Inc.’s antiviral drug in the South Asian nation, announced it would invest $20 million in the Detroit plant. The company will also invest $30 million on a plant at home.The company will initially supply N95 masks in Detroit before expanding to other parts of the U.S. Beximco’s textile unit is tapping new opportunities as luxury brands from New York to Paris scrap garment orders amid the pandemic. The company expects the Detroit plant to be ready in nine months, while the one in Bangladesh will start production in four months. Beximco said Hanesbrands Inc. bought 6.5 million personal protective equipment from the company to supply to the Federal Emergency Management Agency on May 25. Beximco Group is a multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in D...

Bangladesh's pharmaceutical giant Beximco Pharma introduced the world's first generic version of the experimental antiviral drug remdesivir. Remdesivir was authorised by the US for emergency use in the treatment of COVID-19 patients. US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted the multinational Gilead Science Inc "emergency use authorisation" clearing the way for the broader use of the drug. "We are pleased to be the first generic company in the world to introduce this very important drug for treating the hospitalised COVID-19 patients," Beximco Pharma's managing director Nazmul Hassan Papon announced. The company has branded the medicine as "Bemsivir". He handed over the first batch of medicine to Health Minister Zahed Maleque to mark the drug's introduction, saying the firm will provide Bemsivir free of cost to all the severely ill patients of government hospitals which provide free treatment. Beximco said it could produce generic vers...

Salman F Rahman, in a meeting organized by British Business Group, talked about the government's initiatives for developing the private sector. He listed a number of things that would help business investment, including; improving revenue collection; modernising the foreign exchange regime; expanding the capital markets; and tackling problems in the banking sector. The Government was also exploring options for funding infrastructure investment. He said the Bangladesh economy was doing well but the coronavirus crisis was likely to set back global growth which would have implications for Bangladesh. British Business Group organised the meeting to discuss trade between the UK and Bangladesh. The meeting was co-hosted by Robert Chatterton Dickson, the British High Commissioner and Francois de Maricourt, the Chair of the BBG and CEO of HSBC Bangladesh. The guest of honour was Salman F. Rahman, Private Industry & Investment Advisor to the Prime Minister. In his welcome address, Robe...

Adviser Beximco Group’s pharmaceutical division, Beximco Pharma, started distributing personal protective equipment (PPE) to two testing centres – IEDCR and icddr,b, and other government designated hospitals.   Personal protective equipment worth Tk15 crore will be distributed for diagnosis and protecting the frontline healthcare workers during the coronavirus pandemic. The first consignments of the equipment were handed over to different testing centres and government designated hospitals by Nazmul Hassan MP, managing director of Beximco Pharma. Beximco Group is always committed to extending support to any national emergency. Vice-Chairman of the company Salman F Rahman, who is also private industry and investment adviser to the prime minister, said the corporates of Bangladesh are acutely aware of their social responsibilities and have always joined the national efforts to tackle any crisis. In the first phase, Beximco will distribute sufficient numbers of PPE to two testin...

Bangladesh has huge potential on hospitality sector. The economy is growing. And the Asia-Pacific region was now the world’s largest and fastest developing economy spearheading growth in trade, investment, new technologies, innovation and reforms. The prime minister’s private industry and investment adviser Salman F Rahman requested entrepreneurs to invest in this sector. He urged entrepreneurs to take business opportunities and flourish.  Salman F Rahman speaking at the discussion He was taking at a discussion organized by the Confederation of Asia-Pacific Chambers of Commerce and Industry when he requested the businessmen. In his speech, he said Bangladesh has a lot of manpower and training in hospitality management can enable them to serve both inside the country and outside. As a panel discussant, Salman F Rahman said - I will urge the Cacci businessmen to take full investment potential of Bangladesh. The conference has over 300 business delegates including represen...