Defence Minister Khawaja Asif on Wednesday said that the government was satisfied with the sale of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), adding that it had great “symbolic value”. He expressed these views on Geo News programme ‘Geo Pakistan’ when asked whether the government was satisfied with the process. “Yes, the government is satisfied. This is the first big transaction of our privatisation process. This transaction has a great symbolic value,“ he said, recalling that previously First Women Bank had also been privatised, but that transaction was not as big.
A consortium led by the Arif Habib group won the auction for a controlling stake in Pakistan International Airlines Corporation Ltd (PIACL) on Tuesday with a bid of Rs 135 billion, following a competitive, televised process, marking the country’s first major privatisation in nearly two decades. The sale is a central plank of the government’s plan to offload loss-making state-owned enterprises and a key condition under Pakistan’s $7bn International Monetary Fund bailout programme.