Aurangzeb said these things on Monday in Islamabad at the Pakistan, Saudi Arabia Investment Forum.
"We need to accelerate the privatisation agenda because our prime minister has made it very clear that the government has no business being in business," the speaker declared.
"We hope to complete these transactions by the end of June or early July," he stated. "We can already see some of the transactions that are in play at the moment, whether it is PIA, our national airline, or the Islamabad Airport."
There has been some interest in the privatisation of PIA, especially from a Pakistani business conglomerate.
In response to requests from interested parties, the Privatisation Commission (PC) this week extended the deadline for submitting the Statement of Qualification (SOQ) until May 18, 2024.
The Pakistan Competition Commission (Pakistan) approved a merger order on Saturday, allowing PIA Holding Company Limited (Holdco) to purchase all of the shares of Pakistan International Airlines Corporation Limited (PIACL).
The merger order made it possible for PIA to be privatised.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) team is anticipated to arrive in Pakistan over the next seven to 10 days, according Aurangzeb, who addressed the gathering on Monday.
Pakistan's fiscal year runs from July to June, and the country needs to submit its budget by June 30 for the first fiscal year of the new government, which is 2025.
After signing a $3 billion Stand-By Arrangement (SBA) with the IMF, Pakistan barely avoided default last summer. This month, the South Asian nation got the final $1.1 billion payment from the Fund.
Meanwhile, Islamabad "requested the IMF during the spring meetings that we want to go into a larger and a longer programme with the Fund, and they have acceded to that request," according to Aurangzeb, who was speaking to the business delegation on Monday.
He said, "We anticipate that the IMF team will arrive in Pakistan within the next seven to ten days, at which point we will begin debating the specifics of the new programme."
According to Aurangzeb, Islamabad is looking for a new IMF programme in order to implement structural reforms and maintain macroeconomic stability.
According to him, Pakistan must raise its tax-to-GDP ratio from the present 9% to between 14% and 15%.
It is imperative that we begin solving the difficult energy equation right away since we will not be able to reach competitive energy otherwise. The reform of state-owned companies, or SOEs, is the third, according to Aurangzeb.
Speaking to a team of Saudi businessmen who had travelled to Pakistan on Sunday with the intention of signing investment agreements and memorandums of understanding, Aurangzeb reaffirmed the government's pledge to support the private sector to the fullest extent possible in order to move the nation towards export-led prosperity.
According to him, the government is concentrating on attracting FDI to support a number of industries.
Aurangzeb gave a summary of the nation's economic condition and stated that it is improving. Due to bumper crops of wheat, rice, and sugarcane, the agriculture sector's GDP is expanding at a rate of 5% annually.
He was optimistic that this fiscal year's current account deficit for the nation will come in under $1 billion.
"We now have about $9 billion in foreign exchange reserves, or enough money to pay two months' worth of imports. Over the past 10 months, our currency has remained steady, and inflation, which peaked at 38%, has now decreased to about 17%.
He claimed that institutional and foreign investors are also present in Pakistan's stock market.
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