FROM LEFT...Vice-President of DHL Express for South Asia RS Subramanian, Chairman of Bengal Plastic Industries Morshed Alam, Managing Partner of Ikebana Nilufar Farooq, Commerce Adviser Hossain Zillur Rahman, Chairman and Managing Director of Viyellatex Group KM Rezaul Hasanat, and Country Manager of DHL Express Bangladesh Desmond Quiah pose for photographs at the Bangladesh Business Awards 2007 ceremony at Dhaka Sonargaon Hotel yesterday.Photo: STAR

Two prominent businesspersons and a corporate house were honoured with the Bangladesh Business Awards 2007 in the capital yesterday for outstanding performances in different fields last year.
KM Rezaul Hasanat, chairman and managing director of Viyellatex Group, won the Business Person of the Year award while Nilufar Farooq, managing partner of Ikebana, was named the Outstanding Woman in Business of the Year.
Bengal Plastic Industries Ltd was judged the Enterprise of the Year 2007.
At yesterday's award giving ceremony, the Bangladesh Business Awards, jointly introduced by The Daily Star and DHL Express, were announced for the eighth consecutive year giving the champions of corporate Bangladesh their due recognition.
Commerce Adviser Dr Hossain Zillur Rahman handed over the awards to the recipients as the chief guest at a gala ceremony in the ballroom of Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel.
Zinet Fatema, winner of Outstanding Woman in Business award of 2006 and proprietor of Jahan Metal, announced the name of the Enterprise of the Year 2007, while Tax Ombudsman Khairuzzaman Chowdhury announced the name of the Outstanding Woman in Business of the Year.
Annisul Huq, president of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry, announced the name of the Business Person of the Year.
Business leaders, entrepreneurs, academics, expert professionals, diplomats and government high officials attended the event.
As the names of the awardees were being announced, the audience responded with cheers and applause hailing the business heroes while two giant screens displayed their business successes in brief.
Congratulating the awardees, the commerce adviser emphasised on 'personality revolution' and said the country should not wait for a single person to lift the nation. The country does not need one driver, it needs many drivers, he said. “It's a multi-driver reality.”
Talking about corruption, price hike, malnutrition, poverty and other social and economic hurdles, the adviser said statistics of despair is not the only reality. “We should rise beyond these despairs.”
He said businesses should discover their inner confidence which will make them move forward.
“We have to unleash a culture of showing our generosity through these kinds of events,” he added.
In his reaction Viyellatex Group Chairman and Managing Director KM Rezaul Hasanat said barriers are also the strength and if businesses can cross the barriers with honesty, sincerity and quality, they will achieve success.
“I believe in dreams,” he said adding that he wants to get his company listed on the Fortune 500 list. “If many Indian companies can make their way to the Fortune 500, why can't we?” he added.
In her reaction, Nilufar Farooq, recipient of the Outstanding Woman in Business award, said development of women in a country is closely related with the overall development of the country.
Nilufar, who received the award for her success in flower business, said flowers are cultivated across the country nowadays and are exported. “It has a substantial potential,” she added.
Receiving the Enterprise of the Year 2007 award on behalf of Bengal Plastic Industries, its Chairman Morshed Alam said he came on to the stage last night crossing a lot of barriers like many other established businesses.
He wants to offer more quality products to his buyers and said his company recycles around 60.5 percent of the raw materials so that his plant does not pose any threat of environmental hazard.
His company is a performance-based one, he said adding that his future plan is to set up textile and paper mills.
Earlier, stressing the need for a genuine trust based partnership between the government and businesses, The Daily Star Editor Mahfuz Anam said businesses should forget petty rivalry and be united.
Renewed necessity for rediscovering self-confidence and inner power are the keys to growth, he said adding that no individual, no community, and no country can move forward without self-confidence.
“We will have to take any crisis positively,” he said paraphrasing an Albert Einstein quote that every crisis is an opportunity, contextualising it amid current local and global economic problems.
Terming the private sector as 'engine of growth', he said the business community actually functions among both natural and man-made challenges. Despite the challenges, Bangladeshi businesses are not only surviving but also have found a niche on the global market, he added.
RS Subramanian, vice-president of DHL South Asia, also spoke while Desmond Quiah, country manager of DHL Express Bangladesh, delivered the vote of thanks.