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Bangabandhu Bridge may be turned into co to offload shares

UNB, Dhaka
The government plans to convert the Bangabandhu Bridge to a company to offload its shares worth Tk 2,000 crore as part of its bid to resuscitate the capital market.
Finance and Planning Minister Saifur Rahman unveiled the plan yesterday following a meeting with a nine-member delegation from the Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) at his secretariat office.
"The stockmarket lacks good shares to revive", he told newsmen after the meeting in support of the plan for putting the bridge on the share market as a blue chip.
The business community appreciated the move. "It'll be a highly encouraging step," FBCCI President Yussuf Abdullah Harun told the news agency in an instant reaction.
Constructed at a cost of around Tk 5,000 crore over the Jamuna River, the bridge now generates a monthly toll of Tk 8 crore, officials said.
From the earnings, the bridge authority pays Tk 24 crore a year in interests on external loans of six million US dollars. From July 2004, the authority will have to start paying back the principal amount in installments up to 2030.
ment estimates that the repayment would be completed much before the deadline.
The finance minister exchanged views with the bourse operators to find ways and means of rejuvenating the market.
"We will create a bond market," he said, referring to his next move towards giving a nudge to the capital market after having been busy with macroeconomic issues in the first couple of months.
He told the reporters that the government was also considering taxation and monetary measures under the package programme for the bailout of the stockmarket. "It might be tax incentives on dividends and interest rate cuts for lending against stocks."
Led by CSE President M Salman Ispahani, the delegation comprised Vice-President Syed Mahmudul Huq, directors Abdul Muyeed Chowdhury and Waliur Rahman Bhuiyan and Chief Executive Officer Wali-ul-Maroof Matin.
In response to their concern over lack of confidence of the investors, Saifur underscored placement of good shares and management reform.
However, he felt the need for political consensus and a minimum state of good governance for revival of the market as well as the economy.
He appreciated the nine-point prescription from the CSE for breathing fresh life into the stockmarket, which has long been sluggish following a crash.