KUALA LUMPUR: Public project contractors will be paid according to price variations of building materials to help them cope with escalating cost of such supplies.

The Finance Ministry will issue a circular on this plan which will cover pricr Variations in steel and cement said Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib  Tun Razak.

However, Najib said the Government would not provide guarantees that the contractors would be given full aid, saying that it was not appropriate to renegotiate prices of contracts that had already been signed.

"A price review would only be given on some government projects which needed to be studied again," he said after launching the federation of Malay Economic Bodies (Gabem) exhibition and convention at the PWTC here yesterday.

Earlier, in his speech, Najib called on bumiputra housing developers and property industry members not to think of short-term gains or measure their success through the size of their land.

Citing a example, Najib said he had shot down Felda?s plans to rebuild its new headquarters at its present location in Jalan Gurney.

"I told the Felda management that they should look into investing in the future by constructing their headquarters in the city centre.

"The commercial price of their new corporate headquarters near the Petronas Twin Towers has shot up to RM200mil, meaning the future viability and exposure of Felda to the corporate world is assured," he added.