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Talks on investment by Tata deferred until Feb 6
1/23/2006
Talks between the Bangladesh government and India's Tata Group have been deferred until Feb 6, further delaying a final agreement on commissioning of four proposed projects worth $3.0 billion.
The Bangladesh board of investment has proposed the fresh date for the concluding round of negotiations, citing "preoccupation" of officials from both sides, a government official said.
Tata has proposed to set up steel, fertiliser and power plants besides developing a coal mine, making it the single largest foreign direct investment so far in Bangladesh.
The talks were also postponed due to the fact that neither Tata nor Bangladesh government have completed some prerequisites.
Tata, India's largest private sector group, was supposed to come up with a set of its "minimum demands".
Meanwhile, Bangladesh is still awaiting an independent economic assessment of Tata's proposals, assigned to economist Wahiduddin Mahmud.
Representatives of the government and Tata were supposed to prepare a comprehensive list of agreements by Jan 31 as announced by Mahmudur Rahman, executive chairman of the investment board.
Gas pricing for Tata's projects, power tariff and leasing of the coal mine are to be discussed at the talks, the fifth since the Indian company initiated a dialogue after submitting a formal proposal in April 2005. Source : Internet
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