Privatisation: Rs86.5bn target set
ISLAMABAD: Federal government has budgeted Rs 86.550 billion collection from privatization proceeds in the next fiscal year which is 981.8 percent higher than the revised estimates of current fiscal year's Rs 8 billion.
The government budgeted Rs 30 billion privatization proceeds originally for the ongoing fiscal year 2024-25.
The International Monetary Fund's (IMF's) first staff-level report uploaded on its website on May 17, 2025 projected zero revenue from privatisation from 2019-20 till 2030 while it underscored the government's commitment to prioritising privatisation of commercial profitable state-owned entities (SOEs) supported by completion of the SoE privatisation classification.
Govt aims to privatise up to 50 SOEs in next 3-4 years: minister
The IMF is urging federal government to expedite the divestment of government-run institutions and reduce state influence in the commercial sector. Pakistani authorities informed the IMF that the rightsizing of public sector entities will be completed by December 2025.
The government has extended the deadline for Expressions of Interest (EoI) for the privatization of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) to June 19, 2025. This is an extension from the original deadline of June 3, 2025. The government is looking to sell a majority stake (51% to 100%) in PIA through privatization. The previous attempt to privatize PIA in 2024 failed to attract multiple bidders.
A financial adviser has also been appointed for the privatization of three major electricity distribution companies: Islamabad Electric Supply Company (IESCO), Faisalabad Electric Supply Company (FESCO), and Gujranwala Electric Power Company (GEPCO). The target is to complete the privatization of these companies by December 2025. In the second phase, the government plans to privatize the Hyderabad, Sukkur, and Peshawar electricity distribution companies.
Meanwhile, the privatization of the Nandipur Power Plant has been scheduled for January 2026. Efforts are also under way to privatize other government-owned commercial assets, including the Roosevelt Hotel in New York, the First Women Bank, and the House Building Finance Corporation (HBFC). The Privatization Commission confirmed that the transaction structure for these entities is being finalized.
According to officials, the privatization of profitable public enterprises remains a top priority in line with the government's broader goal of reducing state involvement and attracting private investment.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Express Tribune
10 minutes ago
- Express Tribune
Assured confusion
Listen to article This is perhaps the first budget in history which is at the cusp of a mini-budget even before being legislated. The euphoric order that it has laid by forecasting growth at 4.2% – at a time when all plum chips of production, agriculture, exports and FDIs are in disarray and tax collection is stagnated – is nothing but a proposition jotted down in economic non-viability. Moreover, the Rs17.573 trillion layout categorically suggests that it will come down hard on spending, having already gone to the extent of unduly taxing revenue generating digital marketplaces, solar panels, cars and fuel, as well as agrarian tractors. The point is that there is a serious flaw in budget-making, and the finance minister's proposal to raise new taxes to the tune of Rs432 billion is in doldrums. The obstacle has come from forces of status quo and they are the parliamentarians themselves! The warning from the finance wizards that revenue numbers are already locked with the IMF, and in case of non-legislation of the proposed "restrictions on economic transactions by ineligible persons lacking sufficient financial resources", the government will have to impose an additional Rs500 billion worth of new taxes. This is where the supra-mini budget is on the cards. So, what's next? And what if the IMF refuses to listen to our pathetic post-budget tale? Under a deal, as the second tranche of loan was released, the Fund was assured that at least Rs389 billion worth of new taxes should be raised through "enforcement measures", which is not possible without new legislation. The relevant House committee is already raising a hue and cry, and the prevalent partisanship in the coalition makes it an untenable order. The government has exhibited selectiveness by unnecessarily appeasing the parliamentarians with a six-fold increase in salaries, and raising their developmental funds to the tune of Rs70 million each. For them, the FinMin acted as the devil's advocate too. On the other hand, the government slapped a 2.5% deductable tax on the first slab of salaried class and failed to raise minimum wages this year. This waywardness is toiling and pushes the budget to the cliff.
Express Tribune
37 minutes ago
- Express Tribune
The corridor that redrew the map
Listen to article Power, once loud and territorial, now moves silently. It flows through undersea cables, over smart rail, beneath oil pipelines, and into the bloodstream of emerging economies. It wears no uniform, flies no flag. And today, it speaks Mandarin. The latest flashpoint between India and Pakistan carried the weight of a message far beyond a routine skirmish; it signaled a shift. Because the real confrontation unfolded on a deeper plane, where commerce, infrastructure and digital routes now redraw the map of influence. And at the centre of that new cartography stands China. When Indian Rafales took to the skies over contested territory, Pakistan answered with something unfamiliar: Chinese-made J-10Cs, armed with PL-15E missiles, long-range, radar-guided, and built for reach. Pakistan returned fire with precision, moving in concert with China, whose exported military ecosystem entered the arena, marking its arrival as a force rewriting the rules of engagement. Precision. Deterrence. Performance under pressure. Analysts worldwide watched for what worked. The J-10C, long dismissed as a second-tier platform in defence circles, performed with surgical accuracy. Beijing's quiet confidence in its defence hardware was suddenly matched by proof. Pakistan had emerged as China's strategic partner as well as its showroom. Yet this confrontation in the clouds was only the surface of something deeper. The real battleground lies underfoot. Beneath the dust of Balochistan and the waves off Gwadar, China is etching a new route into global power. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) begins as a network of roads and ports, yet unfolds as China's bold reply to Western naval dominance. It provides Beijing direct access to the Arabian Sea, bypassing US-patrolled chokepoints. It allows Chinese goods to flow south through the Karakoram instead of east through contested straits. It is Beijing's pivot from containment to connectivity. And for India, this is the real incursion. CPEC undermines New Delhi's vision of South Asia as its backyard. It rearranges the chessboard. And more dangerously, it proposes an alternative architecture, where power comes through partnership, not subjugation; through trade, not tanks. This is the rise of China as a civilisational strategist. Just as the West once built empires on railroads and gunboats, China builds corridors of steel, fiber, and credit. Where others sow dependence, it offers interdependence. Where others export chaos, it brings roads and routers. To many, especially those weary of IMF prescriptions, this is a different kind of proposition, one that doesn't ask for regime change, only right-of-way. So when the Indian attacks came wrapped in counter-terror narratives, their true purpose was to stall this momentum. Disrupt logistics. Spook investors. Cloud the promise of a Pakistan aligned with China, rather than circling in the margins of colonial memory. Rahul Gandhi said the quiet part aloud: that Pakistan-China alignment is a "crime" against India. But beneath the bluster was the real fear - that CPEC could work; that it could anchor Pakistan's economic autonomy; that it could succeed where Western partnerships had mostly produced crisis. This is China's most subversive act: offering peace as power. It doesn't march into capitals. It funds metros, ports, power plants. It embeds supply chains. Its method is quiet, its scale planetary. CPEC is where that vision takes form. China's imprint achieved through connection rather than conquest. It signals Pakistan's shift toward Beijing's multipolar world. In this alignment, Pakistan emerges as a sovereign bridge between regions, no longer defined by subservience but by strategic geography, activated with intent and positioned for relevance. And that logic is difficult to ignore. China builds with choreography, each project a move in a larger, deliberate design. Its vision for Pakistan reaches beyond asphalt and steel. CPEC has already delivered energy projects that lit up once-dark cities, coal plants in Sahiwal and Port Qasim, hydropower stations in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, and solar fields in Bahawalpur. It connects Hazara through the Havelian-Thakot motorway, threads rail from Karachi to Peshawar, and transforms Gwadar with a deep-sea port, international airport and free trade zone. Plans include special economic zones in Rashakai and Dhabeji, industrial hubs meant to attract regional manufacturing. With fiber-optic cables stretching from Khunjerab to Rawalpindi, and a digital corridor in the making, China envisions a Pakistan that shapes flows of data, power, and influence. China needs stable partners. And Pakistan, if it plays its cards right, can transform from periphery to pivot, so long as it chooses coherence over crisis. But that choice demands a shift within. Pakistan faces a reckoning with its addiction to short-termism. The time has come to align policy with vision, and governance with lasting continuity. Curricula need to evolve from rote memorisation to bold innovation. Universities should forge ties with Central Asian peers, creating networks of shared ambition. Trade diplomacy deserves its rightful place, as the spearhead of a new foreign policy. And youth must become more than an audience. They must be equipped as agents. This is where China's model speaks loudest: think in decades, plan in corridors, build for permanence. If Pakistan mirrors that thinking, offering venture capital for student start-ups, technical training in forgotten districts, fellowships in trade and climate, it builds more than infrastructure. It builds belief. Of course, none of this will be smooth. Global volatility will test resolve. Delays will tempt despair. China's rise emerged through turbulence, carved in resilience, shaped by strategy, and driven with unrelenting purpose. Pakistan, too, can choose that arc. The old order will resist. It always does. CPEC moves cargo, and with it, ideas. It suggests that autonomy isn't the privilege of the powerful, but the prize of the prepared. It declares that smaller states can shape maps if they hold their course. Today's sharpest borders are etched not in terrain, but in worldview. On one side: collaboration, connectivity, self-determined futures. On the other: coercion, chaos and manufactured instability. Pakistan now stands at that border. And how it steps forward will shape far more than its own map.
Express Tribune
37 minutes ago
- Express Tribune
Are Ibn Khaldun's ideas still relevant for countries like Pakistan?
The writer is an academic and researcher. He is also the author of Development, Poverty, and Power in Pakistan, available from Routledge Listen to article The dangerous skirmish with our hostile larger neighbour has sparked a rare moment of national solidarity within Pakistan — a welcome feeling given the immense political polarisation we have been experiencing in recent years. However, major ethnic, regional and socio-economic rifts remain a dominant feature within Pakistani society, and it would be wishful thinking to assume that these serious problems will melt away just because we scored an apparent short-term win over India. Carving out a new nation from colonial India, using the two-nation theory which aimed to unite diverse ethnic groups using a common religious identity, was an impressive feat. Yet, the way this rationale was operationalised through a hurried partition plan resulted in a truncated nation separated by nearly 1000 miles. A sizeable number of Muslims remained in India fearing displacement and believing that the transnational nature of their faith did not necessitate residing in a separate nation. Those who migrated to the eastern wing of Pakistan also soon discovered that a shared religious identity was not an excuse to continue tolerating hegemony by more powerful ethnic groups. The traumatic separation of Bengalis from the rest of Pakistan did not result in other ethnic groups overcoming their differences either. Not only the Balochs or Pathans, but also the Sindhis and Saraikis have their own reasons for feeling disgruntled in the sort of Pakistan we have managed to create over these past several decades. Ethnic disgruntlement is not the only problem corroding a common sense of national identity. Sectarianism and the extremist violence resulting from it remain another source of perpetual consternation. One cannot oversimplify the root causes of such ruptures and blame the Punjabis as the cause of all discord. The proxy contestation between the Soviets and the US, alongside rivalries within the Muslim world, has certainly exacerbated religious tensions in Pakistan. Suspected Indian support to militants and insurgents has added fuel to the fire. However, while these external factors exacerbated societal rifts, they cannot be blamed for creating them out of thin air. The way our post-colonial establishment has relied on top-down, patronage-based and unrepresentative models of governance must shoulder much of the blame for the glaring social tensions evident in our midst today. Perhaps it is time for our leaders and decision-makers to revisit some of the ideas put forth by thinkers closer to our own cultural roots. For instance, the work of a 14th century seminal Muslim sociologist, Ibn Khaldun, still offers relevant insights for addressing the growing polarisation in our contemporary society. Ibn Khaldun's concept of asabiyyah, or social cohesion, is particularly worthy of greater attention. Asabiyyah helps unite people and can foster solidarity through shared values which, in turn, remains essential for effective governance and the overall stability of any state. The essence of Ibn Khaldun's ideas proposes a humanist and participatory approach to governance, wherein the well-being of a given society is a paramount goal. He aptly noted how inequality leads to social fragmentation and instability, and warned about the dangers of relying solely on military strength. Ibn Khaldun certainly offers a more compelling basis for national building than the warped ideologies put forth by populist and divisive leaders who suppress dissenting voices to build hierarchical systems allowing accumulation by the few at the cost of marginalising the many. Even if the traditional characteristics identified by Ibn Khaldun to enable cohesion may be less relevant in our increasingly complex world of fluid identities, the notion of asabiyyah can be reinterpreted to prioritise universal values such as freedom, social justice and respect for differences. If our leaders can honestly embrace such ideas, we may move closer to actualising the notion of Pakistan, which is supposed to be an acronym representing all the regions that comprise this nation.
