B’desh, Myanmar road

DHAKA: A new 23-km road linking Bangladesh with Myanmar is to come up to boost border trade. The road links Gundhum in Cox’s Bazaar in Bangladesh and Bolibazar in Myanmar. Bangladeshi foreign advisor is to sign a deal during his visit to Myanmar. The Bangladeshi move comes as Myanmar seeks to link with up India by road and by sea to make an otherwise difficult terrain. — HNS

S Korea, EU FTA talks

SEOUL: South Korea and the EU are set to formally announce bilateral FTA talks this week. The EU is likely to give the go-ahead on Monday to the talks and Seoul will hold a meeting of trade-related ministers this week before giving the green light for the negotiations. South Korea will put together a delegation of some 50 people covering four areas - commodities, investment and services, regulations and trade disputes. — AFP

Eurozone growth

BERLIN: Exporters in the 13 nations sharing the euro could take a hit from the currency’s soaring strength, but the bloc’s currently strong economic growth will stay firmly on track. Far from being a burden on the 13-nation eurozone economy, Belgian Finance Minister Didier Reynders said the euro’s strength was also a sign of confidence in its growth prospects. — AFP

EU-Russia dispute

LIMASSOL: After two days of talks, EU health commissioner Markos Kyprianou and Russian agriculture minister failed to broker a deal on Sunday that would see Moscow to lift its embargo on Polish meat and plant products. “We continued the talks on Sunday and we have identified issues we need to have an agreement on, we didn’t reach that agreement this time,” Kyprianou said. — AFP

V’nam oil spill probe

HANOI: For three months crude spills have sullied beaches, mangroves and aquaculture farms along Vietnam’s long coastline, but the government says the source of the pollution remains a mystery. While volunteers have scraped over 1,600 tonnes of congealed oil and sand off Vietnam’s shores since late January, officials remain at a loss to explain whether it was dumped. — AFP

Inventory on Pokhara

POKHARA: An informative inventory of tourism products of the area is being prepared as part of the Visit Pokhara Year- 2007. This was revealed by the coordinator of the Visit-Year Programme, Basu Dev Tripathi, at a programme organised here yesterday to announce an extensive workshop on Visit-Year Programme on April 27 and 28. Tripathi said the inventory of tourism products will be prepared in course of the campaign of developing Pokhara as a tourism destination place. Western region-based various organisations related to tourism sector, entrepreneurs and representatives of political parties would attend the workshop and the recommendations rendered therein would be included in the inventory. — RSS

‘IC hurts exporters’

NEW DELHI: India’s rupee is showing new muscle as it scales nine-year highs against the dollar, alarming exporters who sell most of their goods to the US. India’s Federation of Indian Export Organisations says the appreciation of the rupee has ‘severely eroded the profitability of exporters.’ The partially convertible rupee has risen by around 11 per cent against the dollar since last July, helped by inflows from investors eager to invest in India’s booming economy. — AFP

Bank mergers on card

PARIS: A new round of mergers in the European banking industry may be taking hold as a battle for Dutch bank ABN Amro heats up and France’s Societe Generale and Italy’s UniCredit reportedly enter talks. German daily Handelsblatt reported that Societe Generale chief Daniel Bouton and UniCredit head had begun discussions, adding to several days of speculation over the two firms. — AFP

Iranian CP surges

TEHRAN: With the world’s eyes focused on its nuclear programme, economists and lawmakers have sounded alarm bells over inflation in Iran after a conspicuous surge in consumer prices (CP). A combination of expansionary economic policies, US pressure on the banking system and high money supply growth is fuelling price rises in staple goods in the Islamic republic and hitting the lowest classes hardest. — AFP