RFL Plastics, a popular household plastic brand, has been awarded as the best brand under plastic category in the 11th edition of Best Brand Award Bangladesh at a city hotel on Saturday.

Bangladesh Brand Forum (BBF) and Nielsen Bangladesh and in association with The Daily Star organised the programme.

The popular plastic brand was on the second position from the chart of 100 most loved brands, said a press release of RFL on Tuesday.

The winners were picked based on a survey of 4,000 consumers across the country. A total of 100 brands were recognised in 34 categories and overall top 15 brands were awarded from all the categories.

Kamruzzaman Kamal, Marketing Director of PRAN-RFL Group said “It is indeed a great achievement for us. Our popular brand RFL Plastics has received the best brand award for the 9 consecutive year. We thank our customers for their love and trust.” 

Al-Arafa Islami Bank Ltd (AIBL) has launched ‘Islamic Wallet’, a new Shariah-based digital mobile financial service for its clients.

Inaugurating the new service, Bangladesh Bank Governor Fazle Kabir has urged all other Sharia-based Islamic backs to follow suit but cautioned to remain alert against risks.

“The use of hi-tech innovation may result in untoward risk but mitigation measures must be there,” he told the function at Le Meridian Hotel in the city on Tuesday.

AIBL Chairman Abdus Samad Labu, managing director and CEO Farhan R Chowdhury also spoke on the occasion.

The AIBL officials said their ‘Islamic Wallet’ will provide Sharia–based digital services through a mobile app allowing users to make fast, secure and hassle-free online and mobile payments.

It will also allow cash-in and cash-out, fund transfer from bank accounts and cards, access to a range of lifestyle services, they said.

The wallet facilities also include person-to-business (P2B), payments such as bill payments, food delivery, mobile top–up, insurance premiums and loan installments.

The new service will also facilitate business-to-person (B2P) payments such as payroll and commission disbursement and government to person (G2P) payments such as subsidies, freedom fighters allowances, social welfare payments and endowments and person-to-government (P2G) like payments of government duties, taxes and fees.

Fazle Kabir said Bangladesh is now a $302 billion economy which is the 39th largest in the world and in June next it will be a $349-billion one.

He said this shows the potential of the economic development which requires huge technological development.

The Governor said although the conventional banks are very fast to introduce digital services the Sharia-based Islamic banks are far behind in this regard.

He said today 77 million Bangladeshis are using mobile-based financial services offered by 16 banks and two financial service providers under a conducive environment, while $145 million financial transactions are taking pace every day.

Japanese securities regulators are recommending that automaker Nissan be fined 2.4 billion yen ($22 million) over the under-reporting of compensation of its former chairman, Carlos Ghosn.

The watchdog, the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission, said Tuesday it made the recommendation to the government's Financial Services Agency on the disclosure documents from 2014 through 2017.

Nissan Motor Co. said it accepted the penalty and had corrected its securities documents in May, although its final decision will come after it receives official notice.

"The company takes this recommendation extremely seriously," it said in a statement.

Nissan was charged earlier with under-reporting Ghosn's compensation.

Ghosn was arrested in November 2018 and is out on bail. He has been charged with under-reporting is compensation and other financial misconduct. He says he is innocent and has said the future compensation was never agreed upon or paid.

His trial has not yet started. Prosecutors say they are confident they have a case but won't disclose details.

Ghosn's lawyers say the allegations are a result of trumped up charges rooted in a conspiracy among Nissan, government officials and prosecutors to oust Ghosn to prevent a fuller merger with Nissan's alliance partner Renault SA of France.

Nissan, which makes the Leaf electric car, March subcompact and Infiniti luxury models, has seen its sales and profits tumble and its brand image tarnished over the Ghosn scandal. It has acknowledged governance lapses and has promised to beef up transparency.

 Ghosn, one of the auto industry's biggest stars before his downfall, is credited with leading Nissan from near-bankruptcy to lucrative growth.

China's auto sales sank 5.4% in November from a year ago, putting the industry's biggest global market on track to shrink for a second year, an industry group reported Tuesday.

Drivers bought just over 2 million SUVs, sedans and minivans, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

Demand has been dented by consumer jitters over cooling Chinese economic growth and a trade war with Washington.

Sales for the 11 months through November were off 10.5% from a year earlier at just over 1.9 million.

The slump is squeezing automakers that are under pressure to invest in electric vehicle development to meet government sales quotas.

Total vehicle sales, including trucks and buses, were off 3.6% at 2.5 million.

Sales growth has been in negative territory every month since June 2018.

Purchases of electric and gasoline-electric hybrid SUVs and sedans tumbled 43.7% to 95,000.

Demand for electrics has plummeted since government subsidies ended in mid-2019.

After spending billions of dollars to promote the technology, regulators are shifting the burden to automakers by requiring them to earn credits for electrics sales or buy them from competitors that exceed their targets.

For the 11 months through November, electrics sales were up 1.3% at just over 1 million units. Earlier in the year, sales grew by double digits as drivers rushed to buy before subsidies ended.

November's auto sales were a small improvement over October's 5.8% contraction.

Sales of SUVs, previously the industry's strongest segment, were off 7.1% for the 11 months through November. CAAM gave no monthly figure.

Sales by Chinese brands fell 11.4% to 806,000. They lost 2.7 percentage points of market share from a year earlier to 39.2%.

A Foreign Ministry spokesperson on Monday said that China will work with the overwhelming majority of World Trade Organization (WTO) members who share a common goal to continue addressing the challenges facing the WTO Appellate Body.

Spokesperson Hua Chunying's remarks came as the dispute settlement body of the WTO, particularly its Appellate Body, is facing a potential crisis. At least three judges are needed to hear an appeal. Since the terms of two of the three remaining judges will expire on Dec. 10 and the United States has blocked the nomination of new judges, the Appellate Body will be unable to hear new disputes after that date.

"This will make the dispute settlement mechanism unable to operate normally, seriously undermining the authority and effectiveness of multilateral trading regime," Hua said at a routine press conference, adding that such a move is condemned by most other WTO members.

Hailing the dispute settlement mechanism as one of the three pillars of the WTO, Hua said that China firmly supports the multilateral trading regime and has been committed to breaking the stalemate of the nomination issue of the Appellate Body.

China has submitted a proposal on launching the nomination process of the Appellate Body with 115 WTO members, as well as a proposal on the reform of the Appellate Body with 40 members including the European Union, according to Hua.

Despite the crisis facing the Appellate Body of the WTO, the efforts by all sides to safeguard the multilateral trading regime will not stop, and a solution to maintaining the running of the WTO dispute settlement mechanism is being studied, Hua said.