The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet which met on Friday under the chairmanship of the federal minister for Finance, Senator Ishaq Dar, approved the payment of salaries for the months of December 2013 and January 2014 to the Pakistan Steel Mills employees.
The ECC was informed that the impact on public exchequer for payment of two months salaries will be Rs 960 million. The finance minister also directed the Privatization Commission to bring proposal for restructuring Pakistan Steel Mills in the next ECC meeting.
The ECC constituted a five-member committee headed by finance secretary plus secretaries of the ministries of food security, industries and production, water and power and petroleum and natural resources to determine the factors which are hindering production of fertilizers up to the full capacity of the local industry.
The committee will present its report in the next ECC meeting that whether the government should undertake import of fertilizer or the demand could be met from local industries for Kharif Season (April-September 2014). The ECC was informed that keeping in view the demand and local production there is a need to import 0.1705 million tons of fertilizer by TCP. In addition to above Planning Commission had recommended that 0.2 million tons of urea fertilizer may be required for maintaining strategic reserves.
