Islamabad: After a failed attempt, the Government has transferred the privatization of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) to the second phase and now focus on the sale of energy distribution companies (disc) with priority in the first phase, Despite concerns about preparation.
This was officially transmitted to a group of Executive Directors of the World Bank that Pakistan currently visited to play the basis of Pakistan’s economic reforms, including the privatization agenda as a monitoring of the country frame program (CPF) ended last month with assistance with assistance indicative of approximately $ 20 billion. The two parts will soon jointly carry out implementation workshops to ensure that the CPF takes off and is completed.
“In the first phase, the government is focusing on the privatization of energy distribution companies (disc), and in the second phase, Pakistan (PIA) international airlines and other thrust companies will be privatized,” said the Minister of Economic Affairs Ahad Khan Chema The Delegation of the World Bank.
The previous attempt of the Government to uninvert the national flag bearer failed miserably. As a result, the government had to cancel the process and its privatization agenda suffered a setback. Since then, the Government has been working to give Pia Sell-off a second chance.
The approach changes to complete disc transactions in priority
The WB delegation, which includes five executive directors and four alternative executive directors, also raised questions about the privatization of discos, whether substantial circular debt and the difficult structure do not face difficulties in addition to the general approach of the government towards the SOES that public resources bleed.
When describing the priority of the Government for the privatization of emerging companies, Mr. Cheema informed the delegation that approximately one third of these SOES were strategic assets and that the government’s objective was to privatize the remaining strollers in the phases for which the Government pointed to the privatization of up to 50 soes the next 3-4 years.
Circular debt
He told the WB delegation that high electricity rates and technical losses had become disabled for consumers who change to renewable energies and that circular debt was slowly decreasing.
He also shared “the critical challenges currently facing the electrical sector of Pakistan, including high tariffs for consumers, significant losses in the efficiency of the line and continuous efforts to achieve the recovery of complete costs for the sector,” said a Official statement, he added that the minister also recognized that renewable energy resources and management line losses were among the main focus areas for Pakistan’s energy strategy.
The minister appreciated a third WB delegation in a short period of time and said he reflected the confidence of the WB in the “continuous and impressive economic reform process” of the government and its solid association with Pakistan.
The WB side shared that the visit was aimed at improving the understanding of the economic, political, social and government landscape of Pakistan while exploring opportunities for the future support of development under the newly launched CPF 2026-2035.
Highlighting the ongoing digitalization efforts, Cheema said that Pakistan was making significant advances in the digital transformation of the economy, and an exhaustive investigation and review of digitalization models had been completed. “The country is now moving towards the digitalization of its end -to -end institutions,” he said.
In response to a question about youth employment and the empowerment of women, it was told to the delegation that the government was making substantial progress in both areas. Technical training programs for youth empowerment initiatives and women were successfully executed, with adequate budget allocations to guarantee their expansion.
Posted in Dawn, February 18, 2025
