PIA sell-off a foremost priority, WB told

Caretaker Privatisation Minister Fawad Hassan Fawad on Thursday reiterated the government’s firm resolve to privatise major loss-making state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to avoid a substantial financial drain of national resources as well as enhancing their efficiencies.

Talking to World Bank Country Head Najy Benhassine during a meeting, Fawad said that the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) had emerged as the foremost priority for privatisation because of its persistent and staggering financial losses, amounting to billions of rupees.

Fawad and Benhassine discussed the caretaker government's strategic agenda for privatisation, with specific attention to privatising the PIA and optimising the performance of distribution companies (DISCOs).

Fawad explained the outlines of the PIA privatisation plan, expressing the government's intention to engage the World Bank and other financial institutions. He highlighted the government’s plan to develop a comprehensive model for the PIA, with the World Bank remaining a key partner for future support.

The minister said that the federal government, as well as the Apex Committee of the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC), comprising civil bureaucracy, military leadership, and political stakeholders, had unanimously agreed to undertake the privatisation of those SOEs already on the privatisation list.

The overarching objective is to attract much-needed private investment through the privatisation process, thereby unlocking the government funds for deployment to vital infrastructure, development and other strategic sectors.
He also discussed DISCOs given their substantial annual losses, which currently stand at $2.5 billion.

Two productive sessions with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) had already occurred, focusing on formulating a long-term concession model to mitigate these losses, he added.