The New Nation - Internet Edition

UNB, Dhaka

The government would go for reactivating the state-run Rupali Bank before taking any policy decision on the bank's future as the government scrapped the process to sell it out to a Saudi Prince.

"We'll see how we can activate the bank first…the policy decision on its future will be taken later," Finance Adviser Dr Mirza Azizul Islam said talking to UNB and two other reporters at his Planning Ministry office yesterday.

He said all the recruitment process as well as lending operation of the bank remained stalled while other normal banking operations were hampered due to the privatisation move. The Advisors Committee on Economic Affairs Monday decided to drop Rupali Bank from its privatisation list as the winning bidder Saudi Prince Bandar Bin Mohammad Bin Abdul Rahman Al Saud failed to sign a purchase deal within the stipulated time.

About the policy decisions on the bank's future, the Finance Adviser spoke of three alternative options after reactivating the bank.

"The first would be to corporatise the bank like Sonali, Janata and Agrani Banks, while the second would be to try to offload some more shares in the capital market depending on the price and the last would be to take another attempt to sell it out," he said.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Finance called back all the files and documents related to Rupali Bank to the Finance Ministry from the Privatisation Commission.

The Advisors' Committee on Economic Affairs asked the Privatisation Commission to cancel the tender floated to sell out Rupali Bank as part of the privatisation move.

Participating in the tender, the Saudi Prince won the bid in 2006 and proposed to invest a total of $500 million in the state-run Rupali Bank, of which $330 million for buying the bank's 67 per cent shares and the rest for modernising it.