Finance Minister chairs ECC meeting in Islamabad

Minister for Finance and Revenue Miftah Ismail presided over the meeting of the Economic Coordination Committee in Islamabad on Thursday.

The committee approved the proposal to issue a letter of comfort in favour of PSO for raising a loan facility of 50 billion rupees on an urgent basis.

Earlier, in ECC meeting on 31st of last month, it was discussed to arrange a government guarantee loan to ease out liquidity issues of PSO.

A consortium of banks was formed including ABL,NBP, MCB, UBL and HBL for sanctioning a loan amounting to 50 billion rupees to PSO through a government guarantee. As the issuance of guarantee will take time, the banks have shown their willingness to initiate the process of issuing loan on letter of Comfort. However, Finance Division to divert some other allocated guarantees to PSO without exceeding 105 billion rupees domestic guarantee limit for the 1st quarter of Current Fiscal Year.

The ECC also approved Government of Pakistan guarantee for financing facility of 142 million US dollars as loan in accordance with facility agreement between Roosevelt Hotel Corporation and the National Bank of Pakistan.

In order to remove disparity in the prices of imported and locally manufactured Urea, the ECC approved the proposal that Dealer Transfer price of 50 kg imported Urea may be revised upward to 1805 rupees per bag by National Fertilizer Marketing Limited. The ECC further directed to fix the Urea pricing and dealer margin in future with prior approval of the ECC.

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