To collect money govt to sell bond in Singapore stock market
$ 40bn needs for power sector by 2040
The government plans to sell bond in the Singapore Stock Market to collect money for increasing the funds in power sector. On Sunday at Bidduyt Bhaban Drew & Napier, a Singapore-based legal adviser firm established in 1889 presented a paper suggesting the process of listing the bonds in the international stock marketsi.
The programme has been arranged by jointly Energy and Power Research Council and Dhaka Stock Market.
State Minister for Power and Energy nasrul Hamid who was present in the programme as chief guest said More 100 MW of power will imported from Tripura with same rate.
Earlier the government signed deal to import 100 MW of power from Tripura India bt Tk 6.43.
In the last Fiscal Year (FY) 2014-15 the government allotted Tk 16,000 crore which is double compared to the previous FY but now the power division failed to spend the money. Already 23 projects have made no progress and another 19 projects have only progressed less than 25 per cent.
Nasrul Hamid said, we need US$40 billion by 2040 to implement the upcoming projects but we have no capacity to arrange the huge amount of money. On the other hand, if we seek loan we will sink under the loan so we have to search alternative sources. Bond selling in the international market may be a good source for us.
He said, “It will increase our good will in the international market thus the investors will be interested to invest in Bangladesh. By selling the bond internationally we can be branding our country.”
To increase the capacity of the power transmission we will leave the transmission to the private sector, he added.
Power Division Secretary Monowar Islam, Additional Secretary Dr Ahmad Kaikaus and the Managing Directors of the power distribution companies were present in the programme. Farhana Siddiqui presented the keynote paper on behalf of the Drew & Napier.