Four days into the new year, if you’re still struggling to define a theme for the year 2017, take inspiration from the Government of Pakistan. Well, for starters, putting up five major public entities for privatization, has been a sound indication of the year theme in Islamabad. As per the latest news pouring out of the Privatization Commission (PC) meeting halls, the government plans to revive the stalled privatization plan during the ongoing calendar year 2017. To facilitate the plan, the Privatization Commission has floated its idea to go ahead with selling of five major entities including Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) by June 2017.
The other entities suggested to be privatized during 2017 included:
- SME Bank,
- Industrial Development Bank,
- Kot Adu Power Company and
- divestment of Mari Petroleum Company Limited.
The Telephone Industries of Pakistan (TIP) have also been named in the proposed list of public entities to be privatized, however, the deadline for its privatization has not been finalized so far.
As the draft transaction structure to be submitted to the PC Board is being worked out, the privatization of SME Bank is expected to take place by end March 2017.
The PSM privatization is expected to conclude by June 2017 as the transaction structure of PSM has been finalized after approval of PC Board and Cabinet Committee on Privatization (CCOP). The Expression of Interest from international parties are expected to be floated soon.
The transaction of KAPCO (Kot Adu Power Company Limited) has been decided to take place by September 2017, as the PC plans to publish advertisement inviting expression of interest from financial advisors from January 2017. This transaction is expected to be completed by the next financial year 2017-18.
For the Mari Petroleum Company Limited (MPCI), the privatization is expected to take place by end March 2017. Disvestment of GoPs shares in MPCI has been decided to take place either through joint venture (JV) through Fauji Fertilizer and OGDCL or stock market.
On TIP, since the provision of TIP accounts is still awaited, the deadline for privatization process is yet to be finalized.
The news has been a part of the updates shared in a review meeting of the quarterly progress of the Privatization Commission. The meeting, held on Tuesday night, was chaired by the Federal Minister for Finance, Revenue, Economic Affairs, Statistics & Privatization, Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar and discussed the status of the ongoing privatization transactions and post-privatization matters.
image: concordgroup
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