Airports’ privatisation from next year: CAA DG
LAHORE: The privatisation process of the country’s airports will start from next year and Faisalabad Airport would be privatised first.
Director General Civil Aviation Authority Farooq Rahmatullah addressing a press conference here on Monday said that foreign companies would be allowed to take part in the privatisation process of the airports.
Responding to a question, the DG said that restructuring process of the CAA had been initiated and so far the CAA had been running in profit. He said that the restructuring process that CAA is undergoing has long been needed to bring it in line with the aviation authorities of international standard.
The conference also highlighted commercial development projects which include the new Islamabad international airport (NIIA), development of mega airport cities in Karachi and Lahore, as well as the creation of cargo complexes, hotels, shopping malls and attractive retail propositions. He said that the CAA had been renovating all the airports of the country and increased the amount of development fund by Rs5 billion.
He said that in the first three months of this fiscal year Rs3 billion had been spent on the renovation. “On the best performance of the CAA employees, the CAA had given three salaries as bonus which happened in the second time in the history of the CAA”, he remarked.
He said that a new cadre would also be established for the contractual employees of the CAA to improve the fringe benefits. To a question, he said that a project was also underway to improve the radar system of all airports of the country which would be completed by the end of July 2008.
Farooq mentioned that the performance of CAA’s Air Navigation services has witnessed further improvement during the 1st quarter of 2007 and has increased by almost 10 per cent as compared to the 1st quarter of 2006 owing to enhanced air space management capability and transit traffic over flying Pakistan airspace.
He also highlighted numerous initiatives and developments undertaken by the new management of CAA, which were aimed at enhancing the nation’s aviation sector while serving national and public interests.
Fundamental changes made within CAA that were announced during the briefing included CAA’s plans to give aviation in the country a significant boost by allowing market forces to determine the price, quality, frequency and range of air services options with a view to increasing its contribution to the nation’s GDP from 0.1 to 1 per cent over a period of five years.
Reiterating the CAA’s commitment to maintain a proportionate balance between the generation of revenue via aeronautical and commercial operations, the DG said that plans are presently underway to support the development of passenger hubs and cargo transhipment hubs in the country to facilitate the objectives of National Transport Master Plan (NTMP) and National Trade Corridor (NTC).
Source: The News
Date:11/27/2007
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