Pakistan finance minister's US Exim talks covered Boeing financing for privatised PIA, adviser says
Pakistan's finance adviser Khurram Schehzad clarified on Sunday that the government is not buying aircraft for privatised PIA and has announced no sovereign guarantee, after US Exim Bank financing talks.
Pakistan’s finance minister discussed potential US Export-Import Bank financing for Boeing aircraft for the privatised PIA, alongside refinery upgrades and the Reko Diq copper and gold mining project in southwestern Balochistan, his adviser Khurram Schehzad said in a post on X on Sunday.
Schehzad clarified that the government was helping PIA access financing and suppliers, but was not buying aircraft and had announced no sovereign guarantee or taxpayer-funded loan. US Exim could secure financing against the aircraft and assess the airline or lessee’s creditworthiness, he said, so a sovereign guarantee was not automatic.
The clarification followed claims circulating on social media that a minister was arranging and negotiating sovereign-linked financing for PIA’s proposed aircraft purchases, Dawn reported. Schehzad wrote: “The government is neither buying aircraft for a privatised PIA, nor has it announced any sovereign guarantee of taxpayer-funded loan for doing so.”
PIA was privatised through an auction in December last year, ending decades of state ownership of the national carrier.
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