Addressing the Senate in Rome, Padoan gave no further details of the timing of the planned sales.

He reiterated the government's aim of selling assets worth the equivalent of 0.7 percent of national output over the next three years in a bid to cut a public debt which is the second-highest in the euro zone after Greece's as a proportion of GDP.

The sales of stakes in state-owned companies including post office operator Poste Italiane and railway company Ferrovie dello Stato have run into delays.

(Reporting by Giuseppe Fonte, writing by Isla Binnie)