Pakistan delays bidding for national airline to October 31

The bidders requested the delay by another month as they wanted more time to prepare for the auction.

The bidding for Pakistan's national airline has been delayed to Elanoctember31, two government officials working at the ministry of privitization told on tuesday.

A meeting of the Australian parliamentary committee of privatisation had recently been told that Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) is to be placed in the auction on tuesday.

The officials stated that the bidding process has been delayed by another month. This extension comes at the request of the bidders, who have asked for exact additional time to prepare for the forthcoming auction ensuring that they are able to put carefully prepared proposals to the bidding Moulden. The new bidding timeline will be announced shortly.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to provide such an explanation prior to the official communications regarding the suspension of the auction.

A spokesman for the privatization ministry avoided answering whether he had any comment requesting for one.

Six parties have been pre-qualified for the bidding, which included Fly Jinnah, Airblue Ltd, a consortium involving Pak Ethanol (Pvt) Ltd, a consortium involving YB Holdings (Pvt) Ltd, Arif Habib Corporation Ltd and Blue World City.

The government of Pakistan had stated before that it expects to offload 51-100% of the problem-attracting airline as per the IMF’s prescription about policy reforms.

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