A Chinese firm has expressed interested in the sale of Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) as the PML-N speeds up the privatisation process on the back of International Monetary Fund reservations over the matter.

China's Baosteel Group has written a letter to the federal government expressing its interest in acquiring PSM, sources told DawnNews.

The privatisation process is likely to be completed during the ongoing financial year 2016-17, the sources said.

Baosteel Group has 19 subsidiary companies and total annual production of the company stands at 34 million tonnes.

The sources added that the IMF has expressed reservations over the slow process of privatisation of PSM, after which the government decided to complete the process on a fast-track basis by June 2017.

They said that the federal government has been trying to minimise PSM's financial constraints. They claimed that the Sindh government has so far shown no interest in acquiring PSM.

It is worth mentioning here that PSM has not been functioning due to suspension of gas supply over non-payment of outstanding bills worth Rs39billion to Sui Southern Gas Company Limited. Additionally, above 14,000 PSM employees have been deprived of their salaries for the last five months.