The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

The Board of Investment (BoI) is going to sit in renewed talks with the officials of the Indian Tata Group on its US$3 billion investment proposal tomorrow (Sunday).

Energy Division would also be present at the meeting to help speed progress of the negotiations as the Caretaker Government intends to wrap up the dialogue and settle the investment deal before December 2008, sources in the BoI said.

The Caretaker Government resumed the stalled negotiations with the Indian conglomerate last month and.

The move is a response to a letter from Tata to the Finance Adviser of the caretaker government in mid February in which Indian conglomerate sought a resumption of dialogue over its power, steel and fertilizer investment proposal that have been stalled since August 2006.

Following the letter, the Finance Ministry instructed BoI to invite Tata's representatives for fresh dialogue.

Tata submitted a $2.5 billion investment proposal way back in 2005 and revised it later to around $3 billion to set up a 1000 MW power plant, a steel mill with an annual production capacity of 420,000 tonnes and a one million tonne fertiliser unit in Bangladesh.

Although the negotiations came to a standstill in 2006, significant progress had been made. Tata wanted a guaranteed supply of 1.25 trillion cubic feet of gas for a 15-year period and around three million tonnes of coal supply to Tata per annum and upgrading of gas pipeline from the current 24-inch diametre to 30-inch diametre.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) had agreed to provide financial support for development of the gas pipeline.

But the Government of Bangladesh found many of its demands impossible to be fulfil and the talks faced a setback.