Account Ecommerce Internet Merchant

Fortis will restructure its top management as of 1 January 2008.[1] The Executive Committee will be recomposed and responsibilities redistributed. A Business Executive Committee - which will replace the Fortis Management Committee - will be installed and will operate in closest collaboration with a Group Executive Committee. Taking into account the Fortis managers who have already taken up responsibilities within ABN AMRO, Fortis is convinced it now has the adequate management structure in place, not only to guarantee the successful integration of the acquired businesses, but also to develop Fortis as a whole.

1. The Group Executive Committee will consist of:

* Jean-Paul Votron, CEO and Executive Director (Audit reports directly to the CEO);

* Herman Verwilst, Deputy CEO and Executive Director (Human Resources, Public and External Affairs, Business Transformation Office report to the Deputy CEO);

* Gilbert Mittler, Member of the Group Executive Committee responsible for Finance, Risk and General Counsel;

* Filip Dierckx, Member of the Group Executive Committee responsible for Merchant Banking;

* Lex Kloosterman, Member of the Group Executive Committee responsible for Private Banking, Asset Management, Investor Relations and Corporate Social Responsibility;

* Camille Fohl, Member of the Group Executive Committee responsible for Retail Banking and for Global Branding and Communications;

* Peer van Harten, Member of the Group Executive Committee responsible for Insurance and for Real Estate;

* Alain Deschênes, Member of the Group Executive Committee responsible for Technology and Information Services, Operations, Facility, Purchasing and Process Improvement.

BANGLADESH: Rising food prices hit poor

DHAKA, (IRIN): The poor of Bangladesh are increasingly facing food price hikes: Rice, wheat, pulses and cooking oil have gone up as wages have failed to rise in line with inflation.

A recently released Bangladesh Bank Annual Report for the July 2006 - June 2007 fiscal year said wage rates increased by only 4.5 percent compared to 9.8 percent the previous year.

Wage rate increases in the manufacturing, agricultural, fisheries and construction sectors stayed below the consumer price inflation rate of 7.2 percent during this period.

And with the price of food essentials increasing by as much as 27 percent over the past four months alone, experts are concerned.

Manufacturing sector wages increased by 4.3 percent compared to 10.7 percent the previous year, the report said.

Minding the Gap

Two days before Black Friday, that late-November day when all hell breaks loose in the holiday-obsessed American retail industry, Gap Inc. chief executive Glenn Murphy was calmly walking analysts through the company's good-news, bad-news third quarter. Murphy, a veteran Canadian merchant, was recruited last summer by the struggling San Francisco-based retail giant, and this session marked his first full reporting period as the new boss.

Though he hails from the considerably less stampede-prone world of big-box pharmacies—Murphy had been the CEO of Shoppers Drug Mart since 2001, presiding over a spectacularly successful run—he gamely talked about 5 a.m. store openings as if they were old hat. Murphy let on that he planned to drop by an Orlando store for a midnight madness event.