Bangladesh a remarkable success story in Asia: ICCB president

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DHAKA, April 18, 2019 (BSS) – International Chamber of Commerce Bangladesh
(ICCB) President Mahbubur Rahman today said Bangladesh has become one of
Asia’s most remarkable success stories in recent past.

“Bangladesh is an important market for trade finance within Asia and the
Pacific. To remain competitive in today’s changing environment, both clients
and financial institutions have to streamline their trade activities,” he
said.

The ICCB president was speaking at the closing ceremony of ICC Workshop on
‘Trade Finance and Best Practices in Demand Guarantees,’ organized by ICC
Bangladesh, at a hotel in the city, said a press release.

The international trade volume of Bangladesh was US$21 billion in 2005 and
the amount went up to more than $95 billion in 2018, Mahbubur Rahman added.

Rahman cautioned that with the growing business complexities,
technological changes, market expectations and financial crimes, trade
services are becoming increasingly challenging for banks and financial
institutions of our country, similar to the other trading nations.

“Time has come to identify the exposure of banks on international bank
guarantees; and it seems crucial now to formulate guideline or sets of rules
for such guarantees and adopt international rules associated with bank
guarantees and standby LCs,” he mentioned.

He noticed that incidences of Trade Based Money Laundering (TBML) remain a
growing concern for policy makers and central banks throughout the world.

Though the available sets of Anti Money Laundering (AML) rules are in line
with globally accepted standards, there is still a lot of scope to improve
their enforcements, he added.

Bangladesh Bank (BB) is working on TBML guideline which is expected to
bring positive changes regarding better enforcement of the AML rules, he
hoped.

ICC Bangladesh Banking Commission Chairman and CEO of Bangladesh
International Arbitration Centre (BIAC) Muhammad A (Rumee) Ali also delivered
speech on the occasion.

In his speech, Rumee Ali pointed out four major risks in the trade finance
for coming days: these are cyber security, illicit flow, fin-tech and
contagious risk. He urged the participants to be cautious regarding these
risks.

Workshop Resource Person Dr Andrea Hauptmann, Senior Global Consultant on
Trade Finance, Raiffeisen Bank International AG, Austria and ICCB Secretary
General Ataur Rahman also spoke on the occasion.