12 Jan

Top 10 Industries for Tomorrow for job & investment security – surviving the Economic Crush.

Posted by SHAMS K in GREEN ENERGY, SMALL & MID Size ENTERPRISE (SME), VENTURE CAPITALISM. Tagged: , , , , , , , .

 

Many aspects of life are being re-thought in the USA during this economic crash. Since the crush is still happening and bad news is coming everyday there are 100s of different outlooks out there about how the market will behave in coming years.

For young people it’s about jobs. Here in the USA job market and prospect is different than it is in Asian countries. In recent times Peter Schiff has written a book called ‘The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Markets’ where he outlined a few tactics about how to manage money, jobs, careers, retirements in coming years. On the 10th chapter of his little book he outlined 10 Industries with jobs which will be in demand and therefore will provide job security.  

1.       Engineering. According to Peter America will have no other choice but to rebuild its manufacturing base, sore up its crumbling infrastructure and support those few industries where it remains a world leader. So all kinds of engineers will be on demand in next 10 years.

2.       Construction. Roads bridges and public transportation system construction works will be in high demand.

3.       Agriculture. According to peter US Dollar might loose its value significantly in coming years. In that event it will be very costly for the USA to import the amount of agricultural products it is importing right now. So agriculture sector jobs he ranked 3rd place to job security category.

4.       Merchant Marine. As peter predicts that US Dollar will loose its value significantly over the period of time, Made in USA products will be more affordable in foreign lands and world will buy USA made products in a increasing numbers which will increase export. USA is not in the Merchant Marine business big time right now but it will be in coming future.

5.       Commercial Fishing. Peter gives this category a 5th place in terms of job category. Right now USA imports 90% of seafood it consumes while keeping American shoreline almost totally untouched. According to Peter this trend will change and USA will be in Commercial Fishing industries soon.

6.       Energy. Any job related to Solar, Wind and Nuclear energy will thrive into next years as America makes its move to less dependence on foreign oil. Peter also includes re-building of oil refineries a good place to look for jobs in coming years.

7.       Computer & High Tech. Peter predicts that no matter what happens in future the USA will remain as the global leader in Computer and High Tech field in coming future. So he gives this sector a 7th place on demanding jobs.

8.       Entertainment. As peter predicts US Dollar loose its value significantly in future the Hollywood Products will be more affordable world wide which will keep Hollywood going and hiring more people. Peter gives it a 8th place.

9.       Auto Repair etc. For whatever reason peter gives it a secured job category as he predicts the economic crash will last long enough to make people change their car buying habits and fix the cars they already have.

10.   Textile and Tailoring. Peter predicts the USA will not import ready made clothes from foreign developing countries as Dollar loose its value and the USA may make a dynamic move towards textile industries again which will make a lot of demand in these industries.

Well, Peter Schiff is an American fund manage and economist and predicted the current economic boom before than anybody predicted it and in the process of understanding the system he made a lot of money and save his investors out of this current economic collapse. For his prediction of the economic crash he is name as Dr Doom!

Why I would post this in DHAKA Tomorrow, which is a blog about tomorrow’s Bangladesh’s economy, is because the world is coming closer at a faster pace than we think it is. Inter connectivity and intra relation between economies will happen in a very rapid pace in coming years which will definitely affect Bangladesh’s economy. For instance, if Peter is correct and Dollar collapse which causes the USA to stop importing ready made cloths from foreign lands will be a devastating blow to Bangladesh’s economy since it largely depends on the Garments and Textile Industries.

Peter can be right or wrong but this can be a guide line for a budding Entrepreneur in Dhaka today to decide which sector to invest or divest for a sustainable tomorrow. Please comment.

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15 Dec

BRAND BANGLADESH… ..concerning the youths & its magnitude beyond the imagination

Posted by avijith in INVESTMENT & BANKING, SMALL & MID Size ENTERPRISE (SME), VENTURE CAPITALISM. Tagged: , , , , , , , .

BANGLADESH-the best-kept secret of Asia

the best-kept secret of asia

Recently, there has been a great emphasis over “BRAND BANGLADESH” and it has that much credence to engross within this facet. Till date, ‘Anholt Index’ does not include Bangladesh. Consequently, it is a sort of urgency for our country for becoming an economically self-sufficient country as to get on the verge of prospective global economy. This article mainly focuses on the importance of youth for Branding Bangladesh and endorses the way that how we can move forward. Since, we have the potential to go beyond the level by eradicating the off-putting issues contiguous to us.

The dissonance of general people whether at home or abroad always put Bangladesh in a status from where it is hard to plot a notable position. As far as, the general people convey their message of not getting any better results followed by it confers powerless to get the supreme results from our country. Subsequently, the definition of Branding Bangladesh drives there out. The term “Perception Deficit” seemingly refers to the point where Bangladesh currently stands out. It submits a view of overlooking Bangladesh which really the condition does not exist. Hence, the significance of the next generation appears to outweigh the “Perception Deficit” that hampers literally our country image to the foreign people. Thus, the energetic youths materialize to be more considerable than the prehistoric people doing the job for Branding Bangladesh.

Apparently, effective Brand strategy needs to be implemented for sustainable outcome in Bangladesh. Country Branding signifies the kind of innovation that the youth people can deliver with their utmost intensity at a level. Effective Brand Strategy like Malaysia implies truly a long-term strategy depicting it not only from emphasizing on their tourism sector but also from the web-site of tourism Malaysia. Selecting the slogan like ‘Beautiful Bangladesh’ unlike to have that blooming effect and beyond doubt terrible to say although it materializes the fact. I try to uncover some strong motives why such effective brand strategy is being needed for our country-

 Considerable location at the heart of Asia adjacency to India also closer to China
 A strong low cost labor intensive country
 Strapping public market growth
 Emerging market opportunity to attract FDI
 Benefitting from favorable demographics

These key factors create a strong base for embracing of nation Branding. Some of the above key areas are appraised below on basis of the information to the extent that I have covered.

Bangladesh has a great attraction for foreign investors as it is recognized by the JP Morgan-Frontier 5; Goldman Sachs-next 11 also CNBC thus as a low cost labour intensive country about a large domestic market of 150mn people indicates to be the next Asian tiger. Concerning to this issue we need to ensure the proper corporate and political governance.

Corporate governance has to be maintained in a certain level to ensure the accountability of certain individuals in an organization through mechanisms that try to reduce or eliminate the principal-agent problem that in fact exists in our country. Regulatory agencies should monitor proper corporate governance system to guarantee economic efficiency, with a strong emphasis on shareholders welfare unlike the case of Lehman brothers which went to bankruptcy due to the proper corporate governance. Also, political governance necessitates being at its maximum level and anticipating the next election can embark Bangladesh on the political stability.

Bangladesh has the fastest growing youth in the Asia also shows that by the year 2015 has the growth rate of 1.7% where it tends to show negative growth to the other relative countries. This depicts favorable demographic benefits that will certainly assist to leverage Bangladesh.

Entirely, the infrastructure problem always gets the prime concern to be noticed by the government. A proper Branding also needs resilience from the government to recuperate Bangladesh where it supposed to be at the victory day of 1971.

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2 Dec

Recession has been declared officially in the USA

Posted by SHAMS K in Uncategorized.

Recession has been declared officially in the USA yesterday on December 1st, 2008. New data from the National Bureau of Economic Research saying that the current recession actually began in December, 2007. 

26 Nov

Agro-based Bio-Technological Development – the untapped opportunity

Posted by SHAMS K in AGRICULTURE, INDUSTRIAL, SMALL & MID Size ENTERPRISE (SME), VENTURE CAPITALISM. Tagged: , , , , , , .

Almost half of the GDP of Bangladesh still depends upon agriculture. Same way Half of the population is a part of agricultural workforce. Bangladesh has to feed 170 Million people every day no matter what. if you look at it in simple number agriculture is the biggest industry as well biggest sector of the economy in Bangladesh. In rough number Bangladesh agriculture is a 4.5 billion Dollar industry. Unfortunately this huge market, which can be extremely profitable, is largely untapped. It can be extremely rewarding for new enterprises if this market is approached right.

In developed world specially in the USA although agriculture is a much smaller part of the GDP it is always considered as a major part of the economy same as other industrial sectors like software. Research and developments are constantly being made and gov policy is constantly being polished to take agricultural sector for more success.

I would like to discuss my observation with more static points as I see it.

Problem #1: Agricultural produce price in Bangladesh is much lower than international market where there is lots of subsidies involved to keep the cost down for 170 Million people.

Problem #2: Financial sector specially insurance industry is not yet sophisticated enough to provide such insurance for individual units. And from a business point of view its highly risky for an insurer to insure an individual farmer where the output is depending upon mother nature. Even if they provide insurance to individual farmers measuring the risk factor the premium will be extremely high since a flood or drought or cyclone can wipe out the product.

Problem #3: Government bureaucracy in research and development (although I am a strong believer of free-enterprise-non-governmental solution of economical problems and firmly stand by my idea that market is not a part of the government rather government itself is a part of the market as a whole) has slowed down the research output at a minimum in few cases and negative in most cases. For example, when I was a teenager I used to go to Coconut Research Institute in Barisal a lot. It consists 1000s acres of land and 100s of employee in various levels. How many new coconut breeds did they produce in last 30 years that would increase the coconut oil production 30, 50 or 100% more? I never heard of any such development from that gov owned and operated coconut research institute so far.

Possible Solution of Problem #1: Bangladesh can create a buy-back-guarantee program for investors in agriculture sector at a international market rate. Every 2 to 3 years there are floods and Bangladesh has to buy Millions of tons food produce from international market anyway why not buy it from inside the country and keep the dollar. That will give investors enough confidence to get into the market specially for SME sectors.

Possible Solution of Problem #2: Bangladesh Bank can create a no-question-ask guarantee in the event of natural disaster to any insurer who is willing to insure single unit farmer for low premium. It can be written off as a subsidy. This will creat new insurer who will be willing to insure single unit farmers. This will give investors confidence about their investment too who are investing behind single unit farmers.

Possible Solution of Problem #3: Bangladesh has to privatize all Argo-based research institutes. Those have to be for-profit organisations run by business people who are in the business of making money by developing new breeds of rice, wheat, corn, poultry cattle etc by increasing productivity. Agricultural based biotechnological research and development can be the most lucrative investment in Bangladesh as it is in Australia, Denmark and the USA to example a few.

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21 Nov

Benificiary Owner (BO) account opening procedure.

Posted by SHAMS K in STOCK EXCHANGE (DSE & CSE). Tagged: , , , , , .

For opening a Benificiary Owner (BO) account, one has to complete the following steps (if you already have a bank account, otherwise first open an account at a bank) -

1. Select a suitable Stockbroker/Brokerage House with whom you would do your business. Make sure that the Stockbroker you are selcting is a registered member of DSE and CSE.

2. Collect a BO account opening form from the respective Brokerage House and fill it up. You will need the following documents - 

i) Bank CERTIFICATE / National ID Card (or both, depends on the brokerage house)
ii) Three Copies of Passport Sized Photos

3. After filling the form out, pay the brokerage house the account opening fee (it ranges from Tk. 600 – Tk. 1000, depends on the brokerage house).

4. Submit it to them and wait for your account to be opened (from 3 days – 1 month, depends on the brokerage house).

Saimum Hossain

This is a copy of the original writing by Saimum Hossain on a discussion board of a Facebook group which can be seen by clicking here. I am copying and pesting it with his permission.

21 Nov

Investing in Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) as a foreign investor.

Posted by SHAMS K in STOCK EXCHANGE (DSE & CSE). Tagged: , , , , , .

Foreigner investors and the Non Resident Bangladeshis (NRBs) can make investment into our securities market from any corner of the world. To exercise the investment as NRBs/foreigners, one must enter into an agreement with a brokerage house of their choice along with anyone of the following institutions: 

  1. Authorized Dealer of Foreign Exchange
  2. Custodian Bank
  3. Merchant Bank (Portfolio Manager)

All NRBs/foreigners for the purpose of making investment in our market have to have a Beneficiary Owners (BO) account and a client account opened with any of the brokerage house as well as entering into agreement with the Authorized Dealer or Custodian Bank or Portfolio Manager and thus maintain the investment activities from abroad. List of Brokers together with regular market scenario, fundamental status of the companies listed on the Exchanges and many other relevant necessary information would be available at the website of DSE. List of Brokers of the Exchanges, Merchant Bankers or Custodian Banks would be available at the web page of SEC. 

Source: Dhaka Stock Exchange website.

15 Nov

Bangladesh is a NON-ENTREPRENEURIAL SOCIETY .. .. disadvantage or opportunity?

Posted by SHAMS K in VENTURE CAPITALISM. Tagged: , , , , , , .

I will try to make a point of why I think that Bangladesh will be extremely rewarding 5 to 7 years from now for entrepreneurs who start today. 

entrepreneurshipThe world has never seen such proportion of creation of wealth, dislocation of assets and migration of workforce in its history which it has seen in last 20 years. And entrepreneur driven economy of the USA is responsible for 95% of it. 

New age technologies and ideas such as computers, software, e-commerce, investment banking, entertainment & news media, wireless telecommunication, biotech have been able to establish themselves as stable and sound part of economy who have sustained growth in bad and good economic situations in last 30 years. So assets have been invested and wealth has been created in these sectors when major industries like shipbuilding, textile and steal manufacturing have no place in the United States economy anymore. Please note that the size of world economy is about 34 Trillion Dollars where the size of US economy is almost 16 Trillion Dollars. 

The first challenge that comes to new enterprises in Bangladesh is that Bangladeshi society is not an entrepreneurial society when US society is largely entrepreneurial. It is very competitive to be an entrepreneur in the USA because there are lots of them. I think the situation in Bangladesh is very unique and extremely rewarding for new enterprises if the idea is right for the market because there are a very few entrepreneurs in the market with workable worthy ideas or products which means if your idea or product is right for the market there will be virtually no competition at all. (Please comment and discuss on this point) 

techThe economy of Bangladesh is vastly labor intensive such as Garments, textile, cement, agriculture while wealth is largely invested into hard assets such as land and gold. However, I believe when today’s political cloud is over, Bangladesh will emerge as a new economy which will be largely technology intensive. The situation in Bangladesh will be very unique and not similar to China or India because of the size of the market, geographic location and unique talent pool. Technologies and ideas such as computers, software, e-commerce, investment banking, entertainment & news media, wireless telecommunication, biotech and green energy will play a major role in the domestic market and international trade. There are 170 Million Bangladeshi citizens and 230 Million more Bengali speaking people who are Indian citizens. If you add them up it is 400 Million consumers’ market. That’s huge.

So what do you think? Would an effective idea will be rewarding in this market?

15 Nov

Hedge Funds – the future of emerging Bangladesh?

Posted by SHAMS K in VENTURE CAPITALISM. Tagged: , , , , , , .

Wall St has bottomed down already. Actual wealth went away from Investment Banks and went to Hedge Funds. Huge % of these hedge funds are invested into emerging markets in Latin America and China. Bangladesh has reportedly failed to take advantage from CRAZY Investment banking boom in last three decades while Malaysia. Mexico, Brazil, China were in the fore front on gulping the dough.

Well, Investment Banking boom has busted.

 

Next 20 years will be the era of Hedge Funds.

Next 20 years will be the era of Hedge Funds.

Next 20 years will be for hedge funds and emerging markets as last 20 years were for Investment Banks and developed markets. Hedge funds are more flexible about how, where, when they invest than Investment Banks. They are null-ed from many rules and regulation than regular investment banks. As Obama got elected in the USA and Sarkozy is the president of France, Market will rebound in western world slowly as they both believe in Larger gov controlled on financial industry. Well, it is well documented that both of them are not going to control the Hedge Funds since they stay profitable. As industrial western economy will slow down more than 20% in next 2 year more wealth will be available to be invested in emerging markets as ever before in next 10 years.

 

The Question is – can Bangladesh make itself available to these Hedge Funds to be an attractive market to invest for sustainable profit? When they invest, they invest BIG.( Here is an Example – various Hedge Funds invested total of 20 Billion Dollars in Vietnam in 2007 only! as far as my knowledge goes its exactly double the size of Bangladesh economy).

28 Oct

Bangladesh – the next stop for Venture Capitalism?

Posted by SHAMS K in VENTURE CAPITALISM. Tagged: , , , , , .

Majority of the venture capitalists in last decade in the USA and UK has made their money by investing in emerging markets. Right now with such low interest rate and ever weakening dollar we will see more investment flowing to emerging markets than ever before. After investing in China and Vietnam fund managers are now looking to India and Bangladesh for the next stop. It always has been the policy of all major financial houses in the USA to invest substantial % of their portfolio to be invested in foreign investments. 

9 Oct

Wall St meltdown .. .. LIQUIDITY vs CREDIT

Posted by SHAMS K in INVESTMENT & BANKING. Tagged: , , , , , , .

 

 

Street view of Wall St

Street view of Wall St

As an entrepreneur here in the USA I see the recent wall st problem the following way. I want to mention that a large part of of my view of market and money has been shaped by Peter Schiff. My view may differ from main stream outlets. 

 

PROBLEM #1: Problem is not the run on the banking industry. Everybody’s deposit is safe other than FREDDIE MAC bank. The problem is said to be unavailability of CREDIT. Please take note – NOT the unavailability of LIQUIDITY rather unavailability of CREDIT caused this so-called crisis.

PROBLEM #2: Investors are not trusting the market with their investment anymore. So there is a underlying panic situation which is why stock dived 27% last one year. The gov action was necessary to RESTORE investors’ confidence back to the market. Well, it is a never before tested action gov took which may or may not live up to its agenda. The odd of this action to be working no more than 50%.

PROBLEM #3: Everything has a life time. When something become too old it will die. There is no example in human history of something existing for infinite time. Some of the market instruments specially investment banking systems which exist in wall street like Lehman Bros, Morgan Stanly, AIG are more than 100 years old. But none of the investors in today’s market are that old. The IDEA of WEALTH and ASSETS has changed in last 25 years completely. These old instruments clearly failed to keep up with the demands of todays investors and market. 
For example, it was always profitable idea from 1780 to 1980 to try to control and manipulate the market. Market was much smaller and less diverse. But today’s market is huge and extremely diverse. It is not possible for a single instrument, like investment banking, to control the market. These companies tried to play with a 200 years old game. Market reacted and refused to be controlled. 

Here are some results we are seeing.

RESULT #1: Massive dislocation of assets. The US is no longer the ABSOLUTE financial powerhouse of the world. It will remain the most dominant financial powerhouse but not the absolute one. Please keep in mind that there is no other place in the world where society is such innovative and entrepreneurial like the USA.

RESULT #2: World is at a hyper inflationary point now. Just like too much medicine for an old patient. Dollar along with other currencies have less value to hard assets. I believe world is having a 10% inflation today which, I think, is extremely dangerous because it can take the entire world into a 7 to 10 year of economic slow down. Either way, next two years will very tough for the poor people of the world as consumer spending slows down in western hemisphere.

RESULT #3: Loan is very un-available now. Nobody seems to have money to loan anyone. The base of market economy was established with loan guarantee. That seems to be gone for forseeable future. Loan to people, loan to businesses and loan to poor countries are tight right now.

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