The Asian Development Bank has announced participation in its first Shariah-compliant project financing by providing assistance to two projects to build wind farms near Karachi, using two partial credit guarantees worth up to $66 million to the Islamic Development Bank.

IDB will use the assistance to finance two projects that will each produce 50MW of much-needed additional power for Pakistan and lower reliance on fossil fuels.

The wind farms will avoid greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 136,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year.

20-year master plan has been formulated for the development of the country’s road communication network.
The Roads Department secretary, MAN Siddique, handed over a copy of the first-ever master plan to the communications minister, Obaidul Quader, on Tuesday.
Experts of the master plan formulation committee, including the chief engineer of Roads and Highway Department, Aminur Rahman Laskar, were present on the occasion.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has participated in its first Shariah-compliant project financing, providing assistance to two projects to build wind farms close to the port city of Karachi, using two partial credit guarantees worth up to $66 million to the Islamic Development Bank (IDB).

“This transaction allows ADB to be more responsive to borrower demand and provides an opportunity to participate in the fast-growing Islamic finance market,” said ADB’s Private Sector Operations Department Senior Investment Specialist Siddhartha Shah.

Wind developers in Pakistan have raised $133m in finance needed to press on with 100MW of capacity in the country.

The Islamic Development Bank (IDB) and Asian Development Bank, plus a consortium of local institutions, arranged the transaction under Islamic finance terms.

The deal will allow co-developers the Fauji Foundation and Tapal Group to build two wind farms in Sindh province.

The National Transmission and Distribution Company (NTDC) has signed long-term agreements to buy the power produced, says the IDB.

Uzbekistan has signed a deal with a consortium of foreign banks to obtain loans worth a total of $2.54 billion to build a gas and chemicals complex on its Surgil field, state oil and gas company Uzbekneftegaz said.

Uzbekneftegaz said in a statement the signing ceremony had taken place in the Uzbek capital Tashkent on Saturday.

In major development, the Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB) has agreed to provide huge funding amounting to $ 1.14 billion for converting the costly diesel run public sector power plants into coal based power houses owing to which their electricity generation cost would tumble by over 50 percent from Rs 18-20 per unit to Rs 8-9 per unit.

Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India to finalise agreement on transit fee next week. In an important decision, the Union Cabinet this evening gave its nod to sign a pricing agreement with Turkmenistan for the US-backed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) Gas Pipeline Project. The pipeline will terminate at Fazilka in Punjab.

The government has got a commitment of $8.3 million (around Rs 720.93 million) grant under the Global Environment Facility (GEF).

"Nepal has received a commitment of $2.7 million grant for biodiversity, $4 grant for climate change and $1.6 million grant for land degradation," chief of foreign assistance division

under the finance ministry Lal Shankar Ghimire briefed the Global Environment Facility's sixth constituency meeting of South Asia held in Maldives.

The Capital Development Authority (CDA) is faced with the catch-22 situation after the National Accountability Bureau has raised 22 objections on the transparency of the Rs.6.5 billion LED streetlights project. “We raised 22 objections on the tendering process as well as CDA’s objectives behind launching this multibillion rupees project,” said NAB Spokesman Zafar Iqbal.

Guwahati, May 16: Assam power minister Pradyut Bordoloi today said the state would go for second generation reforms to help improve the power scenario.
The first phase of reforms, carried out since 2005, saw the unbundling of the loss-making ASEB into five companies to enhance efficiency and encourage competition. This was subsequently trimmed to three entities — Assam Power Distribution Company limited, Assam Power Generation Company Limited and Assam Electricity Grid Corporation Limited.