The chamber in its latest news bulletin appreciated the government initiatives for restoring political stability, streamlining the administration and bringing the corrupt politicians and their cronies into task.

They, however, opined that drive against corruption should continue without creating unnecessary panic among the businesses.

The ICC-B extended support to the suggestions made by the business leaders when they recently met the chief adviser and the finance adviser, which included reforms in the National Board of Revenue, strengthening the country's trade negotiations capacity and development of the capital market in the interest of accelerating the country's growth momentum.

The bulletin mentioned that the Asian Development Bank in its annual development outlook has revised its earlier forecast of 7 percent growth to 6.5 percent for Bangladesh, while the Bangladesh Bank estimated that it might reach up to 7 percent in FY 2007.

The editorial remarked that there are no reasons now for Bangladesh not to post higher GDP (gross domestic product) in the backdrop of the peaceful condition that has been created after the January change-over.

It also praised government's recent decision of reconstituting the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), separation of judiciary, the anti-hoarding policy, improving power generation and Chittagong port operation.

The chamber in its news bulletin expressed concern over empowering the ACC to arrest suspects and freeze their assets without any court order under a non-bailable section.

"The proposed new provision of law can be used as a tool for harassment. If within the 'emergency period' such a provision cannot be dispensed with, then its implementation should at least be made contingent upon 'approval of all the commissioners of the ACC", the ICC-B in its bulletin said.

It said "Despite political upheavals and various other shortcomings, Bangladesh economy has been achieving a 5.5 per cent growth year after year, with the GDP reaching to 6.7 per cent in the FY 2005-06. It is evident that the economy is on a right track mainly due to resilience of the private sector. As a result, living standard has improved with a steady growth in employment."

It concluded that the country is in the process of integrating itself with the world economy and will continue to do so irrespective of changes at the domestic front.