ISLAMABAD: Expre­ssi­ons of Interest (EoI) for the revival of Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) are likely to be invited by the end of July, it was officially announced on Friday.

A meeting of the Privat­isation Commission’s board, chaired by Minister for Privatisation Mohamm­admian Soomro, discussed matters related to the PSM’s revival. Pending matters are now being resolved in collaboration with the main stakeholders, the minister said. There were a few corporate actions which were to be taken by stakeholders including the Ministry of Industries and Production (MoIP) and the Steel Mills, he added.

The matters leading to the filing of the scheme of arrangement with Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan were discussed in the meeting, which included updated financial reports of the PSMC and its subsidiary, approval of the board for transferring the utility connections to the newly formed subsidiary without encumbrances, approval for the retention of the new subsidiary either by MoIP or PSM and the potential size of divestment among others.

The meeting was briefed about the updated decisions of the Cabinet Committee on Privatisation (CCoP) regarding the Pakistan Engineering Company Limited (Peco) land sale and approval of the revised reserved price of the Services International Hotel Lahore. The current status of the privatisation of Jinnah Convention Centre was also discussed, and the prequalification of the interested parties is under way.

The board was informed that the EOIs for hiring of financial advisers for the sale of remaining federal government properties have already been published.

Published in Dawn, July 10th, 2021