The visiting Direcfor of the Asia Deparlmeni ol In ternational Finance Corpora tion (IFC). an affiliated body of the World Bank Peter Cock, called on Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Dr Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain at his Secretariat of flee on Thursday, reports BSS

The Energy Minister ap prised the IFC Director of private sector participation in power and gas sector of Bangladesh

The Minister said Bangladesh needs about three billion US dollars In power generation sector by the next five years to cater to the ever increasing demand of elec triclty and another four bil lion US dollars by the year 2005

"It Is not possible to pro vide such huge amount of money by the government alone and that Is why, the government has opened up power generation sector for private Investment." he said

Dr Mosharraf Hossain said

Bangladesh has so far signed ten memorandum of understanding (MOU) with differ ent foreign companies Final negotiations for the installation of private power plants is now underway, he said

Turning to private partici pation in gas sector the Energy Minister said the gov eminent is also encouraging private investment in the gas sector to explore the country s vast untapped gas sources He further informed, three multi-national foreign companies have been going ahead with exploration drive under Production Sharing Contract (PSC) to discover new gas resources.

Negotiations are also being held with some other foreign companies, he said

Appreciating the governments efforts to augment the energy resources Peter Cock said the IFC Is very much keen to assist the private initiatives in power generation and gas exploration drives of Bangladesh.