AAJ TV : Pakistan Ki Awaz

ISLAMABAD : The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet Tuesday made it mandatory to produce national identity cards to get a pack of 2 kg sugar from the USC outlets.

The ECC met here under the chairmanship of Federal Minister for Finance Shaukat Tarin at the PM's Secretariat.

This step has been taken to ensure affective monitoring and vigilance system at the USC outlets for sale of sugar.

The ECC also approved following recommendations of the PPIB Board for the revival of 10.5 MW power project by Davis Energen Limited:

--Implementation of the project and operation of plant on pipeline quality gas;

--Extension in Required Commercial Operation Date upto September 30,2010;

--Take & Pay arrangement for power purchase during non-firm gas months;

--Revised Reference Tariff;

--Revision in Financial Closing and Necessary amendments in Security Package Documents.

The ECC allowed allocation of additional 16 MMCFD gas to the Pakarab Fertilizer Limited from SNGPL system from 2012 upto 2019.

With regard to Mashal LNG Project, the ECC decided: 1.

Award of 2.75 MTPA on Medium Term for 6 years and upto 1.5 MPTA on Long Term for 20 years, at prices given below:- a.

Medium Term supplies at 3.95% Brent + 75% Max (HH/NBP) + $1.58 per MMBTU. b.

Long Term supplies at 15.2% Brent + $0.50 per MMBTU, subject to further improvement in the light of the final round of negotiations, to be undertaken with GDFSuez. 2.

The Long Term price is for 10 years and is subject to review for the second ten years period. 3.

Issuance of Sovereign Guarantee as per discussions by Ministry of Finance to cover the LNG supplies. 4. Award of letter of Acceptance of 4Gas for the FSRU in Phase-I at a maximum indicative tariff of US$ 0.50 per MMBTU, in accordance with the Term Sheet agreed by the PNC and subject to final conclusion of the IRR with 4Gas by the PNC. 5. The need for conversion of FSRU to conventional land based Regasification terminal will be reviewed in due course. 6. Negotiations for additional volumes if required beyond 6th year, be initiated at the earliest, the ECC decided. 7. It also decided that the process for putting up a second LNG terminal also may be initiated.

The ECC also decided that the Shell's offer at 15% Brent + $ 0.50 per MMBTU, subject to further improvement in the final round of negotiations will be accepted for upto 1MTPA Medium Term supplies of 6 years and 2.5 MTPA from 7 to 20 years.

The ECC was told that the overall CPI-based inflation registered decrease of 0.49 percent in December 2009 over November, 2009.

The stock of wheat as on January 31, 2010 amounted to 5.9 million tons as against 1.7 million tons in the same period last year, thereby showing a higher stock of about 4.2 million tons compared with last year.

The meeting was informed that trade deficit improved by 29.0 percent to $ 7.0 billion in July-December 2009-10 from $ 10.0 billion in the same period last year.

The ECC noted that workers remittances amounted to $ 4,531.0 million in July-December 2009-10 as against $ 3,640.0 million, showing an increase of 25.0 percent over the same period last year.

The Foreign exchange reserves stood at $ 14.5 billion as on February 4, 2010 - up from $ 6.4 billion on November 25, 2008.

The provisional FBR tax collection stood at Rs.693.3 billion on net basis during July-January 2009-10 as compared to Rs.630.5 billion in the same period last year, thereby posting an increase of 10.0 percent.

Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2010