Govt in talks with potential buyers for Pakistan Steel privatization: official

ISLAMABAD: The government has been in talks with five to six parties for privatization of Pakistan Steel, Secretary Privatization on Wednesday told the National Assembly’s standing committee on privatization.

Federal Secretary on Privatization, Rizwan Malik, in a testimony on privatization programme before the National Assembly’s standing committee here said that from Year 1991 to 2018, the governments privatized 172 state owned entities.

The buyers interested in Pakistan Steel intend to enhance the production capacity of the mill to 3.5 million tonnes, the secretary said.

He said the prospective buyers of the steel mills belong to China and Russia.

Secretary Rizwan Malik said that the mill will be privatized on the basis of Public Private Partnership.

He said shutdown of the mills results in monthly 400 million rupees loss to the national exchequer.

The secretary told the NA committee that privatized 172 state owned entities from Year 1991 to 2018, earned an overall amount of 649 billion rupees.

During the past PML-N government five state owned entities were privatized on 173 billion rupees, while during the PPP tenure from 2008-13 one entity was privatized.

Malik said that 38 state owned entities were privatized during the PML-Q government, which brought 377 billion rupees to the national treasury. In the period from Year 1999 to 2002 the government of the time privatized 27 state entities, the privatization secretary added.