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          The Privatisation Commission (PC) at its 32nd meeting Monday decided to go for road shows at home and abroad to sell the 67 per cent state-owned shares of the Rupali Bank.
"We are hopeful that the total process of the privatisation of the Rupali Bank would be possible within August next," said PC Chairman Enam Ahmed Chaudhury while talking to the FE after the meeting.
The PC chairman said the privatisation process of the Rupali Bank was delayed several times mainly due to filing of writ petition in High Court by the bank's employees and officials.
When the court vacated the writ petition in favour of the PC during the last part of the last year the privatisation process of the bank gained momentum, he claimed.
In the meeting the board members also decided to extend the date of submission of expression of interest (EoI) letters to April 9 from February 28.
"We have extended the submission date of the EoI for smooth completion of the whole process," the PC chairman said.
When asked, he said the road shows would be held in two phases while the first road show would be held in Dhaka on March 8 to be followed in Kula Lumpur, Singapore, Mumbai and Karachi.
The second phase of the road show would be held in Dubai and London from March 12 for finding international buyers for Rupali Bank, a loss making state-run bank, Enam Ahmed said.
"We hope we would get a good response from Dubai and London as many well off Bangladeshi expatriates live in the two cities," he said.
During the Commission meeting the members also decided to sell some loss-making state-owned enterprises (SOEs) under the Ministry of Jute and Textiles, he added.
He said, earlier the Jute and Textiles Ministry showed its interest to privatise some SOEs. But recently the cabinet decided to privatise such SOEs through the PC, he added.
He said the PC would float tender soon for selling some SOEs under the Ministry of Jute and Textiles.
"It would be better for the country as soon as it could privatise the loss-making SOEs," said president of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) Mir Nasir Hossain who attended the meeting.
He said political will is needed to privatise the SOEs quickly as the loss-making enterprises are eating up nearly Tk 35 billion per year.
The meeting was also attended by Secretary of the Ministry of Finance Siddiqur Rahman Choudhury.