The advisory council on government purchase on Wednesday approved a proposal to procure 12.75 lakh tonnes of petroleum fuel oil at a cost of $740 million in the July-December period of 2025.
PetroChina International (Singapore) Pte Ltd, Vitol Asia Pte Ltd of Singapore and Sinochem International (Singapore)Pte Ltd will supply the fuel oil worth about Tk聽9,139.24 crore.
Vitol Asia Pte Ltd has won the packages B and C and PetroChina International won the package A and Sinochem International won the package D of the international tenders floated by the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation.
Finance adviser Salehuddin Ahmed said that they had also approved on Wednesday a proposal in anticipation at a meeting of the advisory council on economic affairs to import liquefied natural gas from OQ Trading Limited of the United Arab Emirate in short term in 2025 and in 2026 based on the Japan Korea Marker Formula, a benchmark price for LNG spot cargoes delivered ex-ship to Japan, South Korea, China and Taiwan.
Besides, the advisory council on government purchase also approved a proposal to procure 200 double-cabin pickups at a cost of Tk聽172 crore for the police through direct purchase from state-owned Pragati Industries Limited. Each of the pickup will cost about Tk聽86,00,000.
After the meetings at the secretariat in the capital Dhaka, Salehuddin said that the 10-day holiday on the occasion of Eid-ul-Azha, one of the largest religious festivals of the Muslims, would not have any adverse impacts on the economy.
Economic activities will not be stalled, said the finance adviser while answering a question regarding the 10-day holiday starting today.
Businesses will run their operations as the Bangladesh Bank has already announced that certain bank branches to assist the make shift cattle markets across the country, he said.
The approval to the purchase of pickups for the police has been given amid a ban on procurement of new cars by the ministries and divisions under the 2024-25 financial year budget.
The ban excludes procurement of vehicles to replace more than 10-year-old vehicles.
The finance adviser said that many vehicles of the police were damaged during the regime change on August 5, 2024, in a mass uprising.
It has been reported that some 1,000 police vehicles were damaged, almost one third of them beyond repair.聽聽聽
The finance adviser said they agreed to allow the police to build a housing complex on the outskirts of the capital.
The advisory council on government purchase approved separate proposals to procure some 30,000 tonnes of rock phosphate and 70,000 tonnes of muriate of potash.
A tonne of rock phosphate will cost $232.90 and a tonne of MOP will cost $339.63.
