ISLAMABAD, Dec 22: The government has decided to offer an additional 5 per cent government shares in the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) to accommodate applications for a total of 37.3 million shares, which have been oversubscribed.

The Privatization Commission (PC) received overwhelming response from the public for this offer and received 27,546 applications for 103 million shares amounting to Rs1.04 billion, which, according to the PC, indicates the public confidence in the government’s privatization programme and economic policies.

Through this offer the benefits of the privatization have been directly extended to the common man and the target the broad basing the market has also been achieved, PC said in a handout issued here on Saturday.

NBP is the first primary market transaction of the current privatization programme and the second after PTCL’s public offer nearly six years ago. Privatization Commission offered 18.65 million government of Pakistan’s shares in NBP at Rs10 per share, which have been oversubscribed more than 5.5 times.

The Bank is one of the largest commercial banks in Pakistan operating over 1,400 branches nationwide. It handles treasury transactions for the government of Pakistan as an agent to the State Bank of Pakistan. NBP also acts as trustee for National Investment Trust (NIT).