NEW YORK: Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has said that Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) is likely to be split into two companies, with a holding group retaining about Rs250 billion in debt and the excess personnel and a “new PIA” holding the lucrative landing rights and the new aircraft.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, Mr Dar said: “Then, the government plans to sell a 26 per cent stake in that ‘new’ PIA to a strategic partner.

“This will have more attraction to potential investors. They will enter into a clean transaction and not be evaluating and calculating the legacy and the bad negative numbers of a poor balance sheet.”

The Journal quoted the minister as saying the government expected to complete a series of big privatisation transactions this spring, in moves that would raise badly needed foreign exchange and dispel growing concerns about the slow pace of reforms.

In addition to billions of dollars from the sale of state-owned assets, the government was looking for $5 billion from the auction of third- and fourth-generation cellphone licences, Mr Dar said. The economy has lately shown signs of revival.