Queensland court gives conditional nod to GVK

In a significant development, the Land Court of Queensland in Australia has granted conditional clearance to $10 billion Alpha Coal Mine project being developed by the GVK Group there. “GVK Hancock welcomes the recommendations from the Land Court that the Environmental Authority (clearance) and Mining Lease for our Alpha coal project be granted subject to conditions.

“We fully understand the significant benefits our projects will bring to the region and will continue to work with the environmental regulators in relation to these recommendations,” GVK said in a statement.

In 2011, GVK had acquired 79 per cent stake in the Alpha Coal and Alpha West projects and 100 per cent stake in the Kevin’s Corner project in Queensland from Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd. GVK’s Alpha Coal Mine is located in the Galilee Basin with the first coal expected to be extracted by 2016. When fully commissioned, the mine will produce 32 million tonnes of thermal coal per year for the Asian export market.

In August 2012, the Australian government gave ‘green’ signal to Alpha Coal project comprising operation of Coal Mine and a railway line between the mine and the port at Abbot Point, near Bowen.

“With this, everything is clear for the project to take off. The Queensland Government will have to issue us the mining lease for Alpha Coal project,” a GVK official told PTI.

State Bank gives warning signals

 

KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan has issued some warning signals and praised the economy as well. Its second quarterly report issued on Friday shows Pakistan’s short-term debt is on an upward spiral and is bringing under a cloud the government’s ability to repay this debt.
And headline inflation has increased to 8.9 percent in the first half of FY14, up from 8.3 percent in the comparable period in the last fiscal year.The report comes after a delay of over three months. While critics of the government have been articulating fears that this delay was used to fudge the national growth figures, the SBP has chosen to maintain a stoic silence over this charge.

The SBP report predictably parrots off the government’s usual expectations regarding potential inflows – the release of Coalition Support Fund monies and the materialization of proceeds from the auction of 3G/4G licences before July 2014. Accordingly, says the central bank, an easing up of the fiscal account and a fall off in domestic bank borrowing and debt stock can be expected.

The SBP is advocating the deployment of the February-March 2014 inflows for public sector development programme and thinks this may ease the government’s current financing constraint. However, even so, the SBP is urging extreme caution on the issue of government borrowing.