Federal cabinet approves mortgages for airports and motorways

ISLAMABAD: The federal cabinet has approved mortgaging of government assets including airports and motorways for obtaining loans.

According to details, Federal Minister for Information Fawad Chaudhry while briefing the media after the meeting held yesterday said that the federal cabinet approved the issuance of Islamic sukuk and leases to promote the Islamic banking system (IB) in the country.

Fawad Chaudhry said that by mortgaging government assets, loans could be obtained at lower interest rates than other assets, so the government decided to issue sukuk bonds and borrow by mortgaging government assets.

Informing the media about the decisions of the federal cabinet meeting, the information minister said that the Finance Ministry had proposed to pledge Islamabad-Peshawar Motorway, Pindi Bhattian-Faisalabad Motorway, and Islamabad Express Highway for the issuance of sukuk bonds, which has been approved.

During the meeting, the federal cabinet approved the mortgage of the M3 motorway and Islamabad-Chakwal motorway. Islamabad airport, Multan airport was also approved to be mortgaged. Fawad Chaudhry said that the aim was to get loans at low-interest rates by mortgaging government assets.

Earlier, Fawad Chaudhry said that the problem of our system is that there are two families in Pakistan, one in London and the other in Dubai, Sharjah, and Canada.

Talking to the media at a press conference yesterday, Fawad Chaudhry termed PML-N and PPP as responsible for national issues and said that the opposition should give suggestions on election reforms and if they are acceptable, they will definitely accept them.