Making national entities profitable top priority: PM

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan said Friday that getting important national institutions out of losses and making them functional and stable institutions was an important part of the agenda of the present government.

He said that the burden of loss of billions of rupees of government institutions was ultimately borne by the people, and therefore, the reform process needed to be further intensified.

Prime Minister Imran Khan observed this while chairing a high level meeting on reforms in Pakistan International Airlines (PIA).

The meeting was attended by Minister for Aviation Ghulam Sarwar Khan, Information Minister Senator Shibli Faraz, Planning Minister Asad Umar, Privatisation Minister Mian Muhammad Soomro, Institutional Reforms Adviser Dr Ishrat Hussain, Trade Adviser Abdul Razak Dawood, Finance Adviser Dr Abdul Hafeez Sheikh, Special Assistant for Information Lieutenant General (R) Asim Saleem Bajwa, Special Assistant for Overseas Pakistanis Syed Zulfiqar Abbas Bukhari, Chairman Board of Investment Atif Bukhari, CEO PIA Air Marshal Arshad Malik and other senior officers.

Prime Minister said that in order to make a national institution like PIA functional and profitable, it was necessary to expedite administrative reforms as well as ensure efficient utilisation of all available resources in a transparent manner. The prime minister directed that progress be made in this regard on a priority basis in accordance with a detailed and comprehensive strategy.

The reviewed progress on reforms to protect national airlines from losses and to make them profitable by modernising them.

The meeting was informed that during the tenure of the present management of PIA, the losses of the company were significantly reduced and at the operational level, the company was in a position to operate flights without incurring any losses.