KARACHI, Nov 8: Tuwairqi Steel Mills Limited (TSML) of Al Tuwairqi Group of Saudi Arabia and Kawasaki Gas Turbines Asia, a subsidiary of Japan’s Kawasaki Heavy Industries, signed an agreement on Wednesday for the supply and construction of a power generating unit at TSML site Bin Qasim.

Zaigham Adil Rizvi director projects of TSML and MD Kawasaki Yuji Tanaka signed the agreement on behalf of their companies.

The power generating unit will cost $30m with a capacity of around 35 megawatts. The unit of four gas turbines of 6.5 megawatts capacity each would be sufficient to cater the power requirement of phase-I of iron making plant of 1.28m tons per annum capacity, says a press release.

NICOSIA, Nov 8: Bank of Cyprus, the island’s largest financial institution, on Thursday posted a 66 per cent rise in post-tax third quarter profits, compared to the same period last year.

The bank immediately revised its 2007 profit forecast upward from the initial target of 240 million pounds to 284 million pounds -- a jump of 35.6 per cent on 2006 full-year profits.

“The Group’s excellent results of the first nine months confirms the correctness of our strategic expansion ... we have set the foundations for our expansion in new markets such as Russia and Romania,” group CEO Andreas Eliades said.—AFP