ISLAMABAD, Dec 20: The government of Pakistan and M/s Etisalat of UAE reached an agreement in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday to complete the privatization of the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) at the original bid price of $2.598 billion.

A Privatization Commission (PC) announcement issued here said the two sides “reached an agreement today towards successful completion of privatization process of the PTCL.

“A team from Etisalat would be arriving in Pakistan next week to finalize the transaction, which was expected to be completed in January 2006”.

Details of the agreement are expected to be announced after a meeting of the cabinet on Wednesday, officials said.

The announcement follows a final round of talks in Abu Dhabi between a Pakistani team led by Privatization Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Sheikh and Etisalat team led by its chairman Mohamed Hassan Omran.

Informed sources said the Pakistani team reached UAE on Tuesday morning through a Gulf Air flight and immediately went into discussions with the Etisalat management.

The minister had taken along a draft agreement that had been finalized in consultation with he Etisalat officials and cleared by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. Pakistan’s ambassador to UAE Ahsanullah Khan, PTCL transaction consultant Amir Qawi and legal adviser Asad Sikandarkhel assisted the minister at talks.

The PC announcement quoted the Etisalat chairman as saying “we are pleased to announce that our talks with GoP representatives resulted in resolution of all issues. We are looking forward towards participating in the dynamic telecom sector in Pakistan to the benefits of the shareholders of both Etisalat and PTCL.”

The two sides have held a couple of rounds of discussions in the past 10 days following President Pervez Musharraf’s recent meeting with UAE’s ruler Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Makkah on the sidelines of the OIC summit.

The sources said President Musharraf had assured the UAE leader that the PC would provide maximum facilitation to Etisalat to conclude the transaction.

Following refusal by the PC to cut down the $2.6 billion bid, the Etisalat team had been seeking relaxations in the payment period and its pattern, 51 per cent representation on the PTCL board against its 26 per cent shareholding and about the future of the PTCL workforce. The government had announced on Oct 29 that Etisalat had failed to make $2.6 billion payment.