PIA’S sale — the first major privatisation in nearly two decades — is being hailed as a historic achievement. Symbolically, it is. Substantively, it is far more complicated because it underscores Pakistan’s economic constraints, low investor interest, bureaucratic resistance to reforms, and public misgivings over the privatisation process.

The government’s disinvestment of its majority stake in the national flag carrier undoubtedly represents a significant breakthrough. This comes nearly five decades after the first Benazir Bhutto administration sold about 8pc of the state’s shareholding in the company through the stock exchange, and follows multiple missed deadlines since and a failed privatisation attempt last........

© Dawn