In the last few years, the current Pakistani government is pursuing privatization very vigorously. As a part of the privatization process, the control of Pakistan Telecommunications Company Limited (PTCL) has been handed over to its buyer from UAE, Etisalat which has paid $1.4 billion already and will pay another $1.2 billion in 9 installments. Etisalat bought 1.33 billion shares out of a total of 5.1 billion of the company. The interesting thing is that I visited the websites of both PTCL and Etisalat but could not get any information about this news item. Anyway, according to the sources I found, representatives from Etisalat have been included the board of directors of PTCL.
PTCL has over 4.4 million telephone lines. It has also mobile phone service and internet service. Pakistan government is hoping that with this move PTCL will become more profitable and the consumers will have better service. Pakistan is very aggressively pursuing a policy of promoting ICT sector so that the country can emulate the success of neighboring India in this sector.
With the privatization of PTCL, Pakistan government has tried to send a signal to the foreign investors that it will support them if they come to Pakistan. Surely, privatization of more state owned companies will take place soon.
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