ISLAMABAD, Jan 28: The government has decided to rehabilitate the Pakistan Machine Tool Factory (PMTF) in Karachi on public-private partnership basis, official sources said here on Saturday.

The three years’ balance sheet of Pakistan Machine Tool Factory shows that the total liabilities of PMTF increased from Rs3.24billion in 2007 to Rs3.74 billion in 2009. It is also facing operating losses which crossed the Rs5 billion mark in 2009.

Though PMTF is on the agenda of the Privatisation Commission, the Ministry of Production has decided to rehabilitate the factory on the basis of public-private partnershipmethodology.

In this regard, the Infrastructure Project Development Facility (IDPF) of the Ministry of Finance has been given the responsibility of involving private sector in the rehabilitation of PMTF.

IDPF has invited Expression of Interest (EoI) from private parties by the mid of February.

PMTF is a precision engineering goods manufacturing enterprise in Pakistan established in 1968 with the assistance of renowned manufacturers of machine tools from Switzerland.

The factory is a unit of State Engineering Corporation of Pakistan and is engaged in the production of machine tools, automotive transmissions and axles components, gears for locomotives, pressure die cast parts and other products.

Major customers of machine tool factory are auto assemblers, Pakistan Railways, SSGC, Pakistan Army, civil armed forces, and countries of the region as well as the Middle East.