ISLAMABAD: The Economic Coordination Committee of the Cabinet has approved a three-month bailout package of 2.9 billion rupees for Pakistan Steel Mills.
A meeting of the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) is in progress in Islamabad with Finance Minister Ishaq Dar in the chair.
The meeting decided that the Chairman Board of Investment and Ministry of Industries should come up with a proposal for long term solution of the problem in the next meeting. It also decided that the Pakistan Steel Mills will remain a public sector enterprise.
The meeting was informed that State Bank had received the first installment of five hundred fifty million dollars from the International Monitoring Fund thus increasing the Foreign Exchange Reserve to ten point four billion dollars.
The Finance Minister said that the prime reason behind the increase of inflation was artificial inflation rates were maintained by the previous government by holding back increase in tariff rates‚ which should have been passed over. The meeting noted that the rising trend had now been stemmed in the last week.
The ECC directed the Trading Corporation of Pakistan to purchase 100‚000 MT of sugar to maintain strategic reserves. Similarly the ECC was told that presently the wheat stock was 7.043 tons compared to 6.750 tons in the corresponding period last year.
The meeting expressed satisfaction that there were eighty-five days of oil reserves in the country‚ compared to twenty-nine days in the corresponding period last year.
The ECC noted this improvement had come about as a result of clearance of circular debt by the government. The ECC was informed that export in the month of July this year increased by nine percent to 2.62 billion dollars.
It decided to constitute a Committee with Deputy Chairman‚ Planning Commission‚ and Federal Minister Ahsan Iqbal as its chair to suggest concrete recommendations for quantum increase in exports of the country.
