ECC Approves Import of 0.6 million tons of Urea Through TCP

The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet met under the chairmanship of Federal Minister for Petroleum and Privatization, Syed Naveed Qamar at the PM’s Secretariat here today.

The ECC approved import of 0.6 million tons of urea through the Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP). The ECC instructed the TCP to float tenders in this regard so that the process is completed within shortest possible time.

The ECC expressed satisfaction that the stock of wheat as on September 25, 2009 amounted to 8.932 million tons as against 3.230 million tons in the same period last year thereby showing a higher stock of wheat of about 5.708 million tons. Wheat procurement target has crossed the proposed figure of 7.05 million tons and reached at 9.231 million tons as on September 7, 2009. The meeting was told that there was decrease in core inflation rate from 14.0 percent in July 2009 to 12.60 percent in August 2009. The ECC was further informed that trade deficit improved by 38.5 percent to $ 2.19 billion in July-August 2009-10 from $ 3.56 billion in the same period last year. It was also noted that workers remittances amounted to $ 1,525.4 million in July-August 2009-10 as against $ 1,219.5 million, showing an increase of 25.1 percent over the same period last year. As regards foreign exchange reserves, the ECC was told that the reserves stood at $ 14.4 billion as on September 10, 2009 – up from $ 6.4 billion on November 25, 2008. The provisional FBR tax collection stood at Rs.155.0 billion on net basis during July-August 2009-10.