December 02, 2007	Sunday	Ziqa’ad 21, 1428

LAHORE, Dec 1: The Infrastructure Project Development Facility (IPDF) and Urban Sector Policy and Management Unit (USPMU) on Saturday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to cooperate in the development of infrastructure projects under the public-private partnership modality.

According to the MoU, IPDF will help USPMU develop guidelines relating to feasibility studies and procurement of public-private partnership projects. It will provide necessary technical assistance to USPMU for the implementation of pilot projects in municipal services, using the public-private partnership modality. IPDF and USPMU will also organise joint workshops and seminars on municipal services and other related subjects for capacity building of various stakeholders.

The MoU has been signed in the light of the recently announced public-private partnership policy of the Punjab government to facilitate development of infrastructure projects. Under the policy, the government will support projects with private participation in mass urban public transport, municipal services, small-scale energy projects and transport and logistics.

LPG prices: The LPG Distributors Association has welcomed the decision of caretaker Prime Minister Muhammadmian Soomro to delink the prices of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) with the international market and demanded fixing of a rate of profit on its prices to check undue profiteering.

Irfan Khokhar, the association’s chairman, said in a statement issued here on Saturday that fixing of profit on LPG was necessary because production and marketing companies had extorted undue profit of Rs2.766 billion due to linking of prices with international market during the past 11 months despite the fact that over 95 percent gas was being produced in the country.

The retail prices required to be brought back at Dec 2006 level after which these were raised by Rs200 per domestic and Rs722 per commercial cylinder.