KARACHI, Dec 15: The National Bank of Pakistan president on Monday assured that in order to maintain economic activity and create employment, circumstantial default cases would be supported by his bank.

In a meeting with a delegation of Aptma led by its chairman Waqar Monnoo, NBP president Ali Reza said that unlike many other banks every attempt would be made to revive such projects.

Citing an example, he said NBP had carried out restructuring of Pakland and Saadi Cement, adding his bank fully backed such cases.

However, Ali Reza said the bank was in discussion with the State Bank in respect of classification of new loans to cases which were being settled. He said at present there was an issue whereby new lending to cases settled under the auspices of CORSIU were not to be classified, whereas in cases settled under any other scheme, including BDP 29, there was a confusion as to the classification.

Waqar Monnoo requested the NBP president to support products like debt equity swaps and TFCs in order to restructure or re-profile unsustainable debts. Ali Reza agreed that such instruments were a need of the future and NBP was already working on such instruments.

The Aptma chairman drew the attention of the NBP chief towards quota-free era starting from January 1, 2005, and said that there would be greater need for the industry to interact with the banks to meet the forthcoming challenges.