July 15, 2006	Saturday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 18, 1427

ISLAMABAD, July 14: The government is holding a series of roadshows next week in New York, London, Hong Kong and Singapore to offer Global Depository Receipt (GDR) of the Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) to the international investors.“The GDR of the OGDCL is going to be our very important transaction which will be finalised by December this year,” said Minister for Privatisation and Investment Zahid Hamid.

Talking to Dawn here on Thursday, he said that he would lead one of the delegations to hold roadshows on four important destinations of the world. “We expect that OGDC will turn out to be one of the significant transactions especially in terms of giving us a good price,” he said.

He said that the financial adviser of OGDCL - Citigroup and Goldman Sachs - had already worked out all the details about GDR offer to the foreign investors.

The minister pointed out that the National Investment Trust (NIT) would be privatised next month for which all preparations were currently being made.

He further said that Wapda’s three unbundled units -- Jamshoro Power Company, Faisalabad Electricity Supply Company (Fesco) and Peshawar Electricity Supply Company (Pesco) -- were also expected to be privatised by end of this year. Currently, National Electric Power Authority (Nepra) is looking into tariff issue of these three companies. Once that job is done, their privatisation will be planned before the end of 2006, he added.

"The Privatisation Commission is also finalising details to disinvest state-owned engineering companies including Heavy Mechanical Complex (HMC), Heavy Electrical Complex and Machine Tool Factory (MTF),” Zahid said.

Responding to a question, he said that the government had referred PIA’s Roosevelt Hotel in New York to the Privatisation Commission to prepare it for disinvestment as early as possible.

He said PTDC motels, salt mines and coal mines were also some of the important transactions which were at advance stage. Similarly, initial public offerings of fertiliser factories were also being finalised.

He said units of the energy sector especially the Pakistan State Oil (PSO), Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL), Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) and Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Company (SNGPL) were being planned on fast track basis. These transactions, he said, were also expected to be completed by December 31, 2006.

The secondary public offering of UBL, IPO of the State Life Insurance and the secondary offering of Kapco and Habib Bank Limited were also being finalised, said the minister. Also, Lasbela Textile Machinery was expected to be disinvested within this year.In reply to a question, he said, all the previous transactions were completed in a highly open and transparent manner and by completing the required procedures. Therefore, it is wrong to say that units like KESC could be challenged in the court, he added.

Replying another query, the minister said that the government was still waiting for detailed judgment of the Supreme Court to file any review petition. "So far we have not decided any thing. We cannot consider any thing about it unless we have with us the detailed judgment of the apex court", he added.