Asif Ali Zardari advocates privatisation of State Life Insurance, power distribution companies

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari stressed that privatisation of state-owned enterprises such as State Life Insurance and power distribution companies (DISCOs) will be part of the "out of the box" solutions that would steer the economy to the path of revival, Aaj News reported.

Addressing a press conference in Karachi, Asif Zardari said that the economy cannot be put back on track through conventional remedies.

"The government will need to think about out of the box solutions," he said, a remark that comes on a day the rupee hit a record low and the stock market's key benchmark index plunged further.

"State Life Insurance, for example, is an entity with a net value of over Rs100 billion. If you float 26 per cent of government shares, you can generate billions quite easily," he said.

The former president also opposed the idea of increasing oil and electricity prices for revenue generation, calling inflation sticky. "Once you raise prices of petroleum products, rates of other items also go up. They don't come back down even if you decrease petrol prices."

Zardari further said that Pakistan should get oil at cheaper rates since Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his family have good relations with Saudi Arabia's royal family.

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"Pakistan will continue to face economic difficulty until the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme gets back on track."

Meanwhile, referring to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan's repeated calls for early elections, the PPP co-chair said elections in the country would be held after the incumbent coalition government implements electoral reforms and amends the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) laws.

"We have to change laws and improve them and then go to elections. Whether it takes 3 or 4 months, we have to work on implementation of policies and improving the electoral process," added Zardari.

The former president said that the coalition government was not against representation of overseas Pakistanis in the voting process.

He said he had consulted Mian Nawaz Sharif and "made him understand that as soon as our reforms and low-hanging fruit targets are complete [we can go to polls]".

Meanwhile, Zardari claimed that overseas Pakistanis had been "led astray" by the PTI government. "They (overseas Pakistanis) have no idea on the kind of inflation in the country."

Talking about the no-confidence vote that led to the ouster of former prime minister Imran Khan, Zardari said it was "good to know that the army can remain neutral". He expressed the hope that it would continue to be "apolitical" and any problems that arose could be solved by national representatives.