LAHORE, April 1: The Privatization Commission (PC) plans to hold the bidding for the sale of United Bank Ltd, 12 funds of Investment Corporation of Pakistan and nine oil fields during April.

This was stated by Minister for Privatization Altaf Salim while talking to reporters after opening an audit workshop here on Monday.

He said the Commission would advertise for sale up to 10 per cent shares of Habib Bank Ltd to the general public in May. He said no specific percentage of the HBL shares to be privatized had so far been decided, adding between 5-10 per cent stock of the bank might be offered to the general public.

The minister also stated that the Commission was working on privatization of another fertlizers unit, Pak Arab Fertilizer Company, after the successful sale of the Pak Saudi Fertilizer Company.

He said the government had made Rs11 billion from the sale of different public sector units during the past two years. He said the domestic and international response to the government’s privatization programme had shown tremendous improvement in the recent months.

Answering a question, he said, it was not prudent to disinvest PIA because the airlines around the world were in a serious crisis since the September 11 incidents. He said the government was trying to save the national carrier from further losses and improve its performance.

Earlier, speaking to the participants of the workshop, he said the government was aggressively pursuing its privatization agenda in order to plug further losses of public money. He said the government had injected Rs32 billion to save two nationalized banks in the recent years. By the time KESC would be sold to the private sector, he said, the government would have suffered a loss of Rs92 billion.