ECC Allows Ethanol-10 Sale As Fuel For Vehicles
20 May 2009
ISLAMABAD: The government has decided to market the Ethanol-10
motor vehicle fuel on all Pakistan State Oil stations which will
help lower the oil import bill once the marketing drive gets
successful.
The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural resources has been asked
to come up with the mechanism and proper costing of the ethanol
so that the end consumers could be encouraged to use this new
motor vehicle fuel.
Advisor to Prime Minister on Finance Shaukat Tarin while talking
to The News said that ECC has given the go ahead signal to
Ministry of Petroleum and Natural resources to market Ethonal-10
on all PSO stations across the country and come up with cheaper
rates to attract the consumers. For this purpose the concerned
ministry is to soon come up with the strategy.
Tarin said: We are exporting the molasses which is surplus in
Pakistan as raw material and other countries are reaping
dividends by making ethanol from the molasses. Since it is the
lower horsepower fuel so it needs to be encouraged with cheaper
price other than the available fuel products prices.
The Pakistan State Oil Managing Director Irfan Qureshi when
contacted said that he received the telephone from Islamabad
high officials for marketing the ethanol, but details are yet to
come.
Qureshi said that the concerned officials are working out the
cost at which the product will be marketed among the end
consumers.
Shaukat Tarin to a question regarding proposal of exporting
wheat products, said that the Federal Cabinet that meets today
(Wednesday) would accord approval to this proposal.
It is pertinent to mention that an inter-ministerial committee
on wheat procurement which met on Saturday last recommended
Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet to
immediately lift ban on export of wheat products. But the ECC
meeting remained unmoved and left the issue to the federal
cabinet to approve this proposal.
However, the ECC was informed that this year Pakistan is likely
to reap a very good crop of wheat, now projected at 24 million
tonnes. Consequently, after two consecutive years of acute
shortage of wheat, Pakistan has finally been successful in
breaking out of the vicious circle of low wheat production.
Talking about the sugar stocks availability in the country Tarin
said that country right now owns 2.6 plus million tonnes of
sugar, which are enough till November-December this year.
However, the sugar demand will increase as the consumption of
sugar increases manifold in the month of Ramazan, which is why
the country needs to import 100,000 to 200,000 tonnes of sugar
for which the government will gradually import sugar in
consignments of 25,000 tonnes so that the impact of
international prices could be curtailed.
He said that the meeting also discussed the issue of inflation
which is the grey area of the government.
To this effect Prime Minister would soon meet the four
provincial chief ministers and ask them to take result oriented
steps to bring down the inflation, Tarin said.
The oil prices and palm oil rates have reduced but the real
relief could not reach the masses, Tarin said.
He said that hoarding and black-marketing is still on the
rampage in the country, which can be curbed by the provincial
governments only. Meanwhile, according to the press release
issued Tuesday the ECC also allowed OGDC to supply 20-25 MMCFD
gas from their Bahu Field to M/s Fauji Kabirwala Power Company
Limited so that OGDCL could meet its contractual obligation
under existing GSA.
The ECC approved issuance of the government guarantee of Rs1
billion for the Pakistan Textile City , Karachi for a period of
two year. It may be noted that Pakistan Textile City is located
in the eastern Zone of the Port Qasim Authority, Karachi on
1,250 acres.
It is a joint venture of Government of Pakistan, public sector
and prime financial institutions. The land for the Textile City
was acquired from Port Qasim Authority (PQA), and its leveling
and grading is approaching completion stage.
The ECC also allowed Export Processing Zone Authority (EPZA) to
provide six acres of land on rent sharing basis for a period of
five years and allowed all permissible EPZA incentives to M/s
Progressive International Party Ltd. of Australia for
establishment of EPZA Tech Power Project.
The meeting also decided that the government would reduce State
Bank borrowings to control inflation in the country.
