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Maize plants being chopped up in Faridpur’s Charbhadrashan upazila for the preparation of silage, which results from keeping the plants covered in stacks in one place for around a month for it to ferment so as to retain as much of the nutrients, such as sugars and proteins, as possible. Farmer Mohammad Muktar Khan spends around Tk 25 lakh cultivating maize on 25 acres of land to produce the silage, which is packed in bags and sold to cattle farmers for around Tk 40 lakh to Tk 45 lakh. The picture was taken at Charshalipur village in Charharirampur union recently.

UAE, China promise Pakistan $1.3b
AFP, Karachi
Pakistan announced financial support Friday from the United Arab Emirates and China totalling $1.3 billion, giving the ailing economy a shot in the arm as it seeks to meet conditions for the resumption of an International Monetary Fund bailout.
Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said the UAE had promised a billion dollars to prop up Pakistan’s forex reserves -- which at their current level of $4.04 billion can barely pay for four weeks of imports.
China on Friday released $300 million to Pakistan -- the last tranche of a $1.3 billion rollover loan, Dar said.
“UAE authorities have confirmed to IMF for their bilateral support of US$ one billion to Pakistan,” Dar tweeted.
He added that the country’s central bank was preparing the documentation to receive the deposit.
Pakistan signed a $6.5 billion bailout package with the IMF in 2019, but has repeatedly reneged on conditions and so far just $3 billion has been released.
The IMF insists the nuclear-armed nation of 220 million people must boost its pitifully low tax base, end tax exemptions for the export sector, and raise artificially low petrol, electricity and gas prices meant to help low-income families.
The country’s hopes for another round of IMF funding also depend on friendly countries rolling over existing loans or providing additional support.
Faisal Shaji, chief strategy officer at Standard Capital Securities, said it appeared the latest funding would put Pakistan back “on (the) IMF-laid track”.
“One must be optimistic of getting IMF funding resumption now,” he told AFP.
Pakistan’s economy has crumbled alongside a simmering political crisis, with the rupee plummeting and inflation at decades-high levels, while devastating floods and a major shortage of energy have piled on further pressures.
Year-on-year inflation hit 35.37 per cent in March -- the highest in nearly five decades -- while the average inflation rate for the past year was 27.26 per cent.
The South Asian nation’s enormous national debt -- currently $274 billion, or nearly 90 per cent of gross domestic product -- and the endless effort to service it makes Pakistan particularly vulnerable to economic shocks.

Chemical exports hit a snag

Exporters blame a lack of facilities in private ICDs
MOHAMMAD SUMAN, Ctg
Exports of chemical or dangerous goods are being hampered due to a lack of minimum facilities in all inland container depots (ICDs) of the country, according to exporters.
Even after 10 months of a major fire at BM Container Depot in Sitakunda last June, none of the depots have been able to gain the qualifications for handling chemical or dangerous goods.
Customs officials said depots have been modified several times for handling dangerous cargo but none have been able to attain the minimum capacity.
According to international laws, including “The Dangerous Cargo Act-1953” and “The International Maritime Dangerous Goods Code”, the depots should have separate entry and exit gates as well as separate sheds for handling these products.
Similarly, other conditions prescribed by the fire service have to be followed to deal with unwanted accidents.
However, no depot has been following those in handling dangerous cargo. After the fire last year, all the depots refrained from handling such cargo.
Then, at the request of exporters, Chittagong Container Transportation Company Limited (CCTCL) started handling the cargo.
But since they did not have the minimum safety standards, the Chattogram customs authority in February barred them from doing so.
In April, the customs authority gave a temporary permit to Eastern Logistic Limited, one of the 18 ICDs, to handle dangerous goods at the request of exporters.
Eastern Logistics, like the CCTCL, does not have the capacity to handle these products but they have been temporarily allowed for promoting exports, according to customs officials.
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) is formulating a policy on handling such goods and once it is available, the customs authorities are expected to enforce it.
However, the NBR officials could not say how long it will take to formulate the policy.
Bikash Kanti Das, head of business at Samuda Chemical, said: “Eastern Logistics, like the CCTCL, does not have dangerous goods handling capability.”
“As a result, we now load these products in containers from our factory and send them to the depot. Following this process, it will not be possible to export the product within the stipulated time,” he said.
Samuda Chemical, a subsidiary of Chattogram’s TK Group, is one of the country’s biggest exporters of hydrogen peroxide.
He said production had to be kept suspended for most of the time.
Several exporters said chemical products could be handled by all the depots before the BM Container Depot accident. But two months after the accident, shipping companies and all the depots showed reluctance to transport these goods.
At least Tk 5 crore to Tk 7 crore has to be spent to implement the conditions of dangerous goods handling as per international law, said Nurul Qayyum Khan, president of Bangladesh Inland Container Depot Association.
“As a result, no depot is interested in investing so much money at this time,” he said.
Though the conditions have been relaxed and a depot has been allowed to handle it, through this alone, it will become difficult to ship goods on time, he added.
“Our eyes have actually been opened after the BM Container Depot accident. Everyone is alert now. The NBR is trying to make a policy in this regard. Hopefully everything will come under a system then,” he added.
Nazmun Nahar, second secretary (export and bond) to the NBR, told this correspondent of The Daily Star, “A committee is working to formulate a policy on handling dangerous goods and all types of chemical products.”
“It will take another month to get their report. After that, it will be scrutinised and the policy approval and implementation process will be started,” she said.
However, it is not possible to say how soon that will be possible, she added.
According to Bangladesh Export Promotion Bureau, chemical goods exports have decreased by 28 per cent in fiscal year 2022-23 from that in fiscal year 2021-22.
In the first nine months (July to March) of FY 2022-23, $226.81 million worth of the goods were exported whereas it was $282.1 million in the same period of FY 2021-22.