The government has once again postponed the deadline to the final quarter of this year, highlighting the challenges it faces in initiating the privatisation of PIA (Pakistan International Airlines) despite assuring the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in July.
Additionally, the government would not be able to privatise any other company within the current fiscal year, falling short of even its modest goal of earning a meagre Rs30 billion from the sale of the company.
Muhammad Ali, the Prime Minister’s Advisor on Privatisation, stated at the Business Summit hosted by Nutshell Group that the bidding for PIA is now anticipated to occur in the last quarter (October–December) of this year. The adviser talked extensively about the challenges facing the government’s privatisation plan.
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Last month, the privatisation ministry informed the IMF that the bidding for Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) was expected to take place in July 2025. They also planned to issue an expression of interest to invite bidders in March. However, the government has once again missed both of these deadlines.
The expression of interest will now be issued before the end of this month. The government has once again approved the transaction structure that requires selling a minimum of 51% of shares in PIA to a private party. It is not clear whether an affiliate of a government ministry or department would be treated as a private party. This should be clarified in the expression of interest documents.
The Privatisation Programme
24 State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) were chosen to be privatised in three stages after the privatisation programme was approved in August of last year. The first year will see ten transactions. However, the initial stage is already well behind schedule.
Thirteen SOEs will participate in the second phase over three years, while the third phase will entail a single transaction over five years.
Along with a third new investor, the government anticipates that the two parties that took part in the first phase of PIA bidding will also take part in the second phase.
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