It has a slim look. Tech-savvy customers are gradually convinced by mobility and affordable prices. So is the indication in the sales of netbooks, the latest entry in Bangladesh's portable computer market. Light and easy to browse, these sleek mini-notebooks are now gaining popularity, mainly among businessmen and students.

Electronics retailers expect to log better sales ahead of Eid-ul-Azha but clothing traders say consumer sentiment still remains mixed.

United Airways launched its flight to London yesterday, the first by a private airline in Bangladesh.

GSP Finance Company (Bangladesh) Limited, a non-bank financial institution, plans to launch a Tk 50 crore closed-end mutual fund.

After remaining inactive for 12 years, merchant bankers yesterday regrouped and pledged to turn the stock market into a major source of finance for industrialisation.

Telecom operators have demanded the government reduce tax for the sector in line with its pledge to make a digital Bangladesh by 2021.

Patrik Brummer, chairman of Brummers and Partners, sees the present economic condition of the country with $10 billion plus foreign exchange reserve is one of the major challenges for the private equity investment to be successful in Bangladesh.

The Bangladesh Bank of late has announced that it has withdrawn restrictions on online charging of credit and debit cards albeit only on local taka denominated ones. This is a long overdue need of the market the absence of which kept us at the bottom of the e-commerce rankings in South Asia.

Banglalink Jigyasha has won the Best Mobile Enterprise Application Product or Service Category at the Asia Mobile Awards 2009, the mobile operator said in a statement yesterday.

Florida banking regulators on Friday shut down Commerce Bank of Southwest Florida, marking the 124th US bank to succumb this year to the struggling economy and rising loan defaults.

Asian markets fell on Friday as investors followed a Wall Street tumble on renewed concerns about the global economic recovery while Japan declared it was in a state of deflation.

The dollar rallied on Friday as investors shunned assets viewed as risky, such as the euro, amid fresh concerns about the strength of global economic recovery, analysts said.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) in Russia almost halved in the first nine months of the year, the statistics office said on Friday, as the economic crisis reduced the country's appeal for investors.

Oil prices dropped on Friday and were likely to stay under 80 dollars because of high energy inventories in the United States, the world's biggest energy-consuming nation, analysts said.

US President Barack Obama, back from a tour of Asia, called Saturday for the United States to produce more goods to sell across the Pacific, touting trade as a way to revive the troubled US economy.

India has scrapped tenders to import rice, saying it has enough stocks to manage despite a harvest shortfall following the worst monsoon in almost four decades.

The International Monetary Fund said Friday Sri Lanka's foreign reserves have reached "comfortable levels," helped by a bailout package, but economic growth was still below potential.

South Korean shipbuilding giant STX is cutting 351 jobs in France through voluntary departures at the historic Saint-Nazaire shipyard, company officials said on Friday.

International Markets
The US dollar remained mostly steady against its major rivals, as the market was range-bound. The euro climbed more than half a percent against the dollar but struggled on to break back above $1.5000. It has remained within the range of a large $1.48-$1.51 "double no touch" options structure rolling off on Friday. The dollar and the yen rose near the end of the week as equity and commodity markets fell, encouraging investors to pare back exposure to risk and buy back the two low-yielders against perceived riskier currencies. Analysts said some investors were already taking risk off the table heading into the year end, wary that the recent rally in risky assets may have been overdone and that economic data has not been as rosy as forecast. A senior economic advisor to the German government highlighted these concerns as he told Reuters Television that Germany could face a double-dip recession in late 2010 or early 2011 as extra public spending is withdrawn. Analysts said investors were also wary of emerging market countries looking at capital controls to limit some of the hot money flows into their economies, with new steps announced by Brazil and South Korea. The market will watch US jobless benefit claims for the week ended Nov 14 to see if the labour market is stabilising. Economists in a Reuters survey forecast 505,000 new filings compared with 502,000 the week before.