The Islamabad airport would be ready by mid-May, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said on Monday as Pakistan aims to outsource the operations of three major airports in the federal capital, Karachi, and Lahore.

“Remaining two will hopefully follow in very short intervals inshAllah,” he said in response to a post by a user on social media platform X.

Last year, the country announced that three main airports of Pakistan would be outsourced and clarified that there would not be any privatisation amid “poisonous propaganda” being run against the country.

Islamabad has engaged the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation as an advisor for the outsourcing process.

No details of the partnership or any agreement have been made official. The South Asian country, however, has been in talks with Qatar to jointly run terminals at Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore airports, officials say.

“PIA will inshAllah be cleared by the EU and UK soon, the process is at an advanced stage and we are pursuing it vigorously,” Asif said as he shared the plans of the government.

The former government decided to privatise PIA just weeks after signing the IMF agreement.

PIA had liabilities of Rs785 billion ($2.81 billion) and accumulated losses of Rs713 billion as of June last year. Its CEO has said losses in 2023 were likely to be Rs112 billion.

“We don’t want to get into the hotel business, let the private sector take care of it, once the above transactions are complete,” the defence minister said.

He added that the country’s visa policy was “archaic and xenophobic” and called for pursuing liberalization. Asif lamented that decades-old mindset was still hampering, but he hoped the government would overcome and make the country easily accessible.

“Let me assure you, we are fully cognisant of these issues and hope to sort them out very soon. I appreciate your concern and will keep you informed of progress.”