Etisalat's five-member team arrived here on Wednesday to negotiate the PTCL deal with the government authorities. A senior official of Privatisation Commission, who is privy to the decisions taken by the two sides during previous rounds, told Business Recorder that as was agreed in UAE, Etisalat team was now in the federal capital and will hold the first meeting with the official team on Thursday.
The official expressed strong hope that third round will be fruitful and help two sides reach to final understanding on the issues, unresolved so far.
Although officially both sides have remained tight-lipped about the outcome of the talks and are yet to come with an official announcement, however, they unofficially accept that various issues about the deal were being discussed to give it a final shape.The official said, "At the end of the second round, held in UAE early this month, the two sides agreed to meet in Islamabad and things were moving in the same direction."
Pakistan has already agreed to give Etisalat the concession in payment period for the transaction, which has been extended to 20 months.
It is believed that in the third round the two sides are likely to take up the issues such as mode of payment, representation of the two sides for the board of the company and a methodology to hire or discharge the company workers.
The official conceded that many complex issues were involved and would be resolved to make the deal acceptable to Etisalat, which had offered $2.6 billion for PTCL's 26 percent shares.
As in the previous rounds, Privatisation Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh will head the government side during Thursday's negotiation, assisted by the privatisation secretary Tahsin Khan Iqbal and other senior officials of the commission.
According to sources, the two parties will continue negotiations till reaching to some understanding as both the governments of Pakistan and the UAE were directly engaged in the process. They maintained that top level leadership of both countries has great desire to make the negotiation process a success.
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