Govt to Organize Seminar on SOE Reform Agenda

The Finance Division is organizing a stakeholder seminar to raise awareness and improve understanding of major reform initiatives on the State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) taken by the Finance Division. This seminar will be held on 27 July in Islamabad and include a consultation session on the major challenges to improving corporate governance and commercial performance. SOEs and their losses are a huge burden on the budget and to rectify the situation, the government needs an entire set of reforms, which the Finance Ministry is now initiating. The stakeholders will also share information and practical experiences on international best practices and the lessons learned that could inform the scope and design of the government’s SOEs reform program. Pakistan’s economy needs comprehensive structural reforms for inclusive, smooth, and sustainable growth, and the SOE reform is one of the major key priority areas. These major issues are increasing SOE transparency through new audits, the triage of the SOEs, and enhancing the SOE legal framework through a new SOE Law. The seminar will provide a good opportunity for all stakeholders to exchange ideas on the progress made so far on various SOE reform initiatives undertaken by the Government of Pakistan. The seminar is expected to entail the generation of new ideas and feedback from the line ministries and the SOEs for the improvement of efforts to implement the SOEs reforms agenda effectively and collaboratively. Federal Ministers, the Country Director of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and other officials from the ADB and the World Bank (WB) will participate and speak at the seminar.