With over Rs 500 billion in annual financial bleeding, the Pakistani government has decided not to set up any new state-owned entity (SOE) unless required for strategic reasons or under an agreement with any country and gradually offload the majority of an existing lot of 200 entities mostly operating in losses. A draft policy released by the finance ministry defines strategic SOEs as those “undertaking a strategic objective or owning and managing strategic assets”. For existing SOEs, the government would put in place a mechanism for restructuring leading to gradual privatisation or divestment as private-public partnership (PPP). For this, each division of the federal government which has SOEs operating within its control shall develop a reform plan and categorise the SOEs into strategic SOEs, commercial SOEs to be privatised, SOEs required to be restructured, reformed and retained in the medium term or SOEs needed to be restructured before privatization, reports Dawn.
