ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb on Saturday stressed the importance of efficient management of state assets by private investors in improving the country’s fiscal position, calling on the private sector to focus on increasing the country’s exports. 

Islamabad has sought to privatize loss-making state enterprises which have accumulated losses in the billions over decades, by handing over their management to private companies to create fiscal space. 

Pakistan has identified 25 public sector enterprises for privatization, including the flagship carrier Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), banks, hotels and power generation and distribution companies. Islamabad’s move to privatize the PIA and other state-owned enterprises is part of a deal with the IMF for financial bailout programs. 

“This is very important and I keep saying this repeatedly that the private sector has to lead this country,” Aurangzeb said during an event in Karachi. 

He added that SOEs were inflicting losses worth Rs2.2 billion [$7.9 million] per day to Pakistan, adding this amounts to Rs6 trillion [$21.5 billion] yearly. 

“Think about this, this year we have to collect taxes worth Rs12.9 trillion [$46.3 million], so approximately 50 percent of this, if there is no [financial] drag of the SOEs, if all of them are being run by the private sector, if this drag is not there then you can imagine our fiscal balance or imbalance it will become so much better,” he said. 

The Pakistani minister urged private companies to focus on exports, adding that while the country had achieved economic stability, it needed to achieve growth as well. 

“If we have to end this boom-bust cycle and if we have to take this economy toward to a 5, 6 and 7 percent growth, it has to be an export-led growth,” Aurangzeb said. 

Pakistan has made some economic gains in recent months, with the stock market performing impressively and breaching over 109,000 points at close of trade on Friday. 

Inflation in the country, which reached a record high of 38 percent in May 2023, slowed to 4.9 percent in November, lower than the government’s forecast.