ISLAMABAD: A meeting of the Privatisation Commission on Tuesday discussed privatisation of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) and agreed a clear timeline for the purpose.

The meeting, presided over by Minister for Privatisation Fawad Hasan Fawad, was held to meet the target set by the caretaker prime minister and the federal cabinet for PIA’s privatisation.

The privatisation minister held detailed discussions with different stakeholders, including the PIA management and the aviation division focusing on restructuring of PIA leading to the privatisation process.

However, no details of the proposed timeline, were mentioned in the press release issued by the Privatisation Comm­ission.

Earlier, Mr Fawad held a meeting with Finance Minister Dr Shamshad Akhtar and discussed important economic and fiscal matters and exchanged valuable insights and ideas on the privatisation agenda.

The Cabinet Committee on Privatisation (CCoP) at its meeting on September 6 had decided to form a technical committee for the resolution of bottlenecks in the way of privatisation and restructuring of PIA, and had asked the aviation division to work with the privatisation commission to present a detailed action plan to the CCoP with clear timeline framework in a sequence.

The PIA is fully dependent on the government, the finance ministry and credits from the financial institutions to meet its operational requirements.

The airline has recently negotiated fresh credit facilities from financial institutions under the government of Pakistan guarantee limit.

Published in Dawn, September 20th, 2023