NEW YORK: Pakistan’s national airline wants new planes, and its finance minister is asking a U.S. government lender to help pay for them.
Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb, in New York for the 81st U.N. General Assembly alongside the prime minister, sat down with John Jovanovich, chair of the U.S. Export-Import Bank, to make the case. The main ask: financing for Pakistan International Airlines to buy Boeing 787 Dreamliners, covering both the aircraft and their engines.
Aurangzeb also brought a more immediate problem. Some of PIA’s Boeing 777s are sitting grounded, and he asked for help getting the spare parts needed to put them back in service.
Neither side left with a deal, but they settled on a direction. They will keep building a broader cooperation framework while focusing first on specific transactions, such as financing the pre-delivery payments that airlines must make on new aircraft. Refinery upgrades were flagged as another area where the bank could step in.
The talks also touched on Reko Diq, the massive mining project Pakistan sees as central to its future exports. Aurangzeb stressed how costly delays have been and welcomed the bank’s continued backing.
It was one stop in a busy few days of meetings. Earlier, Aurangzeb met Boeing’s global president, Brendan Nelson, to talk about modernizing PIA’s fleet and speeding up deliveries. Boeing confirmed it would send PIA a revised proposal for new aircraft, and both sides will look at earlier delivery slots and interim leasing to bridge the gap.
Taken together, the meetings show what Pakistan is after on this trip: financing for aviation, refining and mining, and practical partnerships to make it happen.
