'Govt to focus on domestic,international market'

ISLAMABAD:The government is at a reasonable point to start focusing on domestic and international market transactions of Oil and Gas,banking and other sectors during the current fiscal year. The Federal minister stated this while chairing a meeting of various investment banks and business groups to review the Capital Market Transactions here on Thursday.

The minister said that the sizeable interest being expressed locally and internationally by the investment groups demanded to accelerate the pace of offerings through various modes.

It was for the market to give feedback by indicating the appetite and to suggest the sequencing of the offerings, he added while revisiting the privatization process.

The representatives of various investment banks and the business groups made a detailed representation on this occasion and suggested solutions to the economic problems stating that the emerging markets have their inherited demands while Pakistan capital markets were currently well placed and operating on 35 per cent discount ratio in the region.

The matter pertaining to issuing convertible/ exchangeable bonds of big tranche such as in Oil & Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL), Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) and other entities were also discussed.

The feedback will now be presented in a meeting on the sub Committee on the Cabinet Committee on Privatization on issuing equity-linked instruments in Public Sector Entities (PSEs), being held tomorrow on Friday February 18.

Earlier, Muhammad Ejaz Chaudhary welcomed the minister on behalf of the officers and staff of the Ministry and the Privatization Commission and assured him of full support in executing the instructions for speeding up the process.

The representatives of Barclays Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Citi Bank, AKD Securities, National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) Equity investments and others attended the meeting.