Minister of State for Privatisation Zubair Ummar on Thursday said the government was committed to privatise all its power distribution and generation companies under its privatisation programme.
The work for this purpose has been initiated and it wouldn’t take much time when the distribution companies would be brought to the point of sale, he said.
The minister was addressing at an opening session of “1st National Conference on Macroeconomics and International Finance (NCMIF)” which was arranged by the department of economics at the National University of Modern Languages (NUML).
He said burden of millions of Afghan refugees, 9/11 attacks and terrorism had affected their economy and social fabric badly. However, despite all this, the government had envisaged a privatisation programme that included transactions in the banking and finance, oil and gas, power, and other sectors.
A competitive market for power would be envisaged. While in some areas, such as the national flagship airline, PIA and Pakistan Railways, the government strategy is to turn around the companies before considering the privatisation option.
Similarly, the privatisation of airports, seaports, insurance companies, and shipping have all been studied or proposed at some point, he said. Muhammad Zubair said as far the economic growth was concerned, media was not depicting the true picture whereas the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) was performing at its best for last 18 months.
Zubair said there were 450 million people living below the poverty line in India but it was projected as if Indians were in abreast with America and other developed countries.
Indian exuded this feelings whereof the reality was that there was difference of just USD 150 per capita income between India and Pakistan.
The world history told them that all democratic countries of the world grew and progressed after going through a long and painful process of evolutions but not by revolutions.
Speaking in his key note address, Principal and Dean NUST Business School Dr Ashfaque Hasan said that external shocks in terms of trade shocks, natural disaster and capital flight as well as poor macroeconomic management created macroeconomic instability resulting in slower economics growth declining domestic and foreign investment, rising unemployment, poverty, higher budget deficit, current account deficit, higher inflation and pressure on exchange rate and rising debt burden.
He said these challenges were addressed through conventional macroeconomic policies of stabilisation. This was not the solution as it brought sorrow and suffering for the people.
Dr Hasan said the way forward was to strike a balance between stabilisation and development roles of macro economic policies, changing the way fiscal and monetary policies were designed and implemented.
The bottom line was that macroeconomic policies should not focus narrowly on reducing budget deficit, debt stabilization and reducing inflation rather policies should be supportive of growth and employment generation, he added.
NUML Rector Maj Gen (R) Masood Hasan, Bakar Ahmed, Senior Vice President Askari Bank and HoD Economic Department Ms Saima Shafique also spoke at the opening ceremony of the NCMIF.
Different academic session under the topics of macroeconomic stability and economic growth, finance and economic development will be chaired by Dr Azam Khan, ex-vice chancellor ARID and Karakoram universities and Prof Dr Eatzaz Ahmed, Vice Chancellor Quaid-i-Azam University respectively. Prof Dr Mukhtar Ahmed will be chief guest in the closing ceremony.
