Laws in Sindh are investment friendly, says Qaim

Karachi

The Sindh government has enacted quite a few investment-friendly laws including the Sindh Public Procurement Act and the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Act under the guidelines of the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, enabling an atmosphere conducive for foreign businessmen in the province.

This was stated by Sindh finance minister Murad Ali Shah while speaking during a meeting with a delegation of China Shandong International at the CM House on Monday.

It was under these laws, he said, that upcoming Ghotki-Kandhkot road, Hyderabad-Badin road, Tando Mohammad Khan-Badin road were being constructed.

The chief minister picked up the thread of conversation from where the finance minster left off and reiterated that the provincial government had tried its best to create an investment-conducive atmosphere in the province.

Besides finance minister, the chief minister was also assisted by local government minister Jam Khan Shoro Jam and Chief Secretary Siddique Memon.

The chief minister remarked that Karachi was the financial capital of the country where headquarters of most banks, financial institutions and businesses were situated. Furthermore, he said, Sindh government was the regional power house of the future because it had vast coal reserves that could produce up to 100,000 MW for the next three decades while its coastal wind corridor had the potential of generating 50,000 MW.

He said Sindh was already producing 56 percent of the oil and 78 percent of the gas consumed across the country. Moreover, he said, the province also had 5.45 million hectares of cultivable land a 350 kilometre long coastline base with tremendous opportunities for tourism and fishing industries.

Additional secretary for development, Mohammad Waseem, said the projects executed under the PPP mode included the Hyderabad-Mirpurkhas dual carriageway, Jhirk-Mulla Katiar bridge, NICH security and fire safety contract, Sindh Nooriabad gas power project, Karachi-Thatta dual carriageway, besides other projects in the education and health sector.

He said the Hyderabad-Mirpurkhas dual carriageway project was a toll-based model, was constructed in two years with a concession life of 27 years.

It was a 67-kilometre long road of four lanes and a Korean company was investing around Rs6.2 billion in its establishment.

Waseem said the project had incurred 40 percent commercial debt, 30 percent soft loan and 30 percent equity and construction was completed in 2012.

Similarly, he said, Jhirk-Mulla Katiar bridge, expected to be completed in the next few months, was being built with a cost of Rs4.5 billion under an annuity-based model with concessional life of 27 years, after its two-year construction period.

It was a 25-kilometre road with two lanes with a flyover that was 1.7 kilometre long. It had incurred 75 percent commercial loan and 25 percent equity.

Transport secretary Taha Farooqui gave a presentation on the city’s mass transit plan. He said the route of Brown Line bus service in Karachi would be from Nagan Chowrangi to Singer Chowrangi, covering a distance of 18.5 kilometres. He said its commuters were estimated to be around 736,000 per day and the system capacity was expected to be around 45,000 persons per hour per day (pphpd). The estimated cost of the whole project would be around Rs116 billion.

Moreover, he said, the BRT Red Line would begin from Mazar-e-Quaid and will end at Malir Cantt, with a total corridor of 21.5 kilometres and 24 stations. He said around 350,000 people will use the service every day while it had the capacity of 13,000 pphpd. Its estimated cost would be around 15 billion.