KARACHI, Nov 19: The Trading Corporation of Pakistan has secured a financing of Rs4 billion for its sugar procurement exercise at a very low mark-up of 1.719 per cent per annum from two private banks.

This was stated by TCP chairman Syed Masood Alam Rizvi in an interview with APP here on Wednesday.

He said that MCB and UBL had agreed to provide this financing facility till June 30, 2004 without any quarterly review.

“This will reduce financial cost of our sugar procurement operation which is expected to last for eight to 10 months,” he observed.

He pointed out that the TCP had approached nine banks for obtaining this loan and two of them were finally selected on the basis of lowest rate.—APP