KARACHI, June 21: The National Bank of Pakistan signed an agreement with Pioneer Cement Limited (PCL) on Tuesday to facilitate the cement company to undertake expansion scheme comprising installation of another production line of 4,300 tons per day capacity.

At a joint press briefing held here by NBP and Pioneer Cement, it was stated that the NBP had agreed to lend a supporting hand to the company by allowing grace period of debt servicing, to enable the company to deploy internally generated funds to finance the expansion scheme, which envisaged expanding the capacity to three times the existing capacity. It was explained that the mark-up rates on loans had been reduced by the bank to two per cent above KIBOR.

The agreement also provides for issuance of 11.59 million shares to the NBP at Rs23 per share in discharge of one of PCL’s outstanding liabilities.

Pioneer Cement’s management stated that the new plant would commence production in the last quarter of current calendar year. The company stated that it had wiped out 90 per cent of the accumulated losses from its books.