Privatization in South Asia

In the last decade, governments worldwide have raised over $1 trillion from the sale of state-owned enterprises. However, the South Asian economies of Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka have been slow to divest from government-owned firms. Revenues raised from privatization between 1991 and 1999 totaled just $11.9 billion in South Asia. In contrast, Latin America raised over $177 billion over the same period. In this paper we discuss the privatization process in South Asia with a focus on India, the largest economy in the region.