ECC approves import of 20 more items from India

The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet on Friday approved import of 20 more items from India, approved the gas load management plan for winter and constituted a committee to finalise the draft of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India (TAPI) pipeline project.
An official source said the Ministry of Commerce had sought approval for expansion in the positive list for importable items from India. The committee approved import of textile spinning machines, cone bobbin winding machines, reeling machines, power looms, empty aluminum alloy milk cans, accessories for leather bags and footwear, jigs and dyes for vehicles, other polymers of ethylene in primary form, lufenuron, cotton linters, fungicides for leather industry, Ucer-50 for leather industry, sewing, mending and embroidery needles, fly ash for cement industry, traction motors and their spares, all kinds of printed books and flavouring powders. It also approved the import of newsprint, frozen vegetables, polypropylene and polyethylene PTA through the land route.
The committee approved the natural gas load management programme for winter under which the CNG and industrial sector will face gas supply cut-off three days every week. Industries having 9 month gas supply agreements will get gas supply for that period, while for rest of the duration they will have to use alternate fuel. The fertilizer sector on Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Limited (SNGPL) system will get 100 mmcfd supply instead of 240 mmcfd during November.
The ECC decided to constitute a committee headed by the petroleum minister, including secretary cabinet, secretary finance, and secretary revenue to fine tune proposals for the finalisation of TAPI pipeline project draft. The committee will submit its report before the upcoming visit of the president of Turkmenistan.
The source said the petroleum minister informed the committee that import of Iranian gas would start from the agreed date of December 2014. The ECC approved allocation of 750 mmcfd imported gas from Iran to SNGPL and Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) on 65 percent and 35 percent ratio respectively. It was also decided that the imported gas will be supplied only to efficient power plants approved by the Ministry of Water and Power. Sui companies will enter into back-to-back Gas Sales Purchase Agreement (GSPA) with the power plants. Even though the Petroleum Ministry had sought resumption of petroleum products supplies to all the 13 ex-depots, the committee approved supplies to only four depots of Faqirabad, Kotla Jam, Sahiwal and Shershah.
The committee also approved renewal of government guarantee of Rs 2 billion for the Pakistan Steel Mills. It also waived competitive bidding requirement under the (Public Procurement Regulatory Authority) PPRA rules for emergency response and social administration information system project of the state owned National Telecommunication Corporation under a memorandum of understanding with ZTE Corporation of China.