December 5, 2001	Wednesday	Ramazan 19, 1422

ISLAMABAD, Dec 4: The Privatization Commission has decided not to disinvest major state sector units in their present shape to avoid complications and huge losses.

“We have changed our strategy to disinvest major units like PIA, ports & shipping, Steel Mills, airports, HMC, etc., which will not be brought in the market unless their formidable losses are significantly curtailed,” said the Minister for Privatization Altaf M. Saleem.

He told Dawn that without removing what he termed “financial bleeding” of the major corporations and enterprises, it would be unwise to put them for sale in their present weak position.

“We are considering to adopt Wapda as model — corporatize bigger public sector entities first so that they could offer some good price,” the minister said.

Earlier, he said, it was planned that after small and medium scale units were disinvested by 2002, bigger units would be picked up for privatization.

Since the market sentiments have started improving, the government off-loaded some of the shares of the bigger units through the stock exchanges of the country. These exchanges, he said, have overcome, to some good extent, their serious financial and other administrative problems.

Replying to a question, he said, Pakistan Steel Mills was a complete city, and first its size was needed to be thinned and losses reduced before putting it up for sale.

Altaf Saleem said that financial haemorrhaging of the state sector needed to be effectively stopped to make them financially viable before their eventual privatization.

Talking about Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), the minister for privatization said that a decision has been taken to disinvest its catering and ground handling facilities.

“We have been approached by a Swiss company — Gate Gourmet — to take over flight kitchen of the PIA,” he said adding that the company has also indicated to invest 30 million dollars immediately.

He said the Swiss company prepared food for 225 airlines of the world and enjoyed very good reputation. “I have talked to the PIA authorities about the proposal and let us see what happens,” he said.

Altaf Saleem said that PIA was currently catering roughly 12,000 meals daily while the Swiss company was catering over 1.2 million meals daily.

He said that once the catering and ground handling services of the PIA were privatized, the disinvestment of other important sections could also be considered.

To a question, he said that bigger state sector units would not be privatized on throwaway prices. “There was no urgency but we are certainly making sure to control their losses so that burden on the national exchequer could be reduced.”