CPEC industrial cooperation: Govt finalises plan to revitalise 7 SEZs

ISLAMABAD: The government has finalised a plan for revitalisation of seven existing Special Economic Zones (SEZs) while missing facilities including utilities would be provided to them in next six months.

Chairman Board of Investment (BOI) Haroon Sharif said that BoI would ensure all out efforts to actualise the overall goal of industrial cooperation for shared prosperity under China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). He expressed these views while briefing Chinese Ambassador Yao Jing and investors during a visit to the newly established Project Management Unit of the Board of Investment here on Wednesday.

Chairman BoI said a revitalisation plan for the existing 07 special economic zone has been finalised wherein missing facilities including utilities would be provided in the coming six months to ensure utilisation of around 1500 acres land here would be brought under utilisation.

He further informed that apart from Asian economies, N Korea, Japan and Malaysia have shown keen interest to invest in Pakistan and the newly established Project Management Unit under the BOI will ensure maximum facilitation to the investors.

Chinese Ambassador Yao Jing appreciated BOI’s initiative of establishing a specialised PMU for Industrial cooperation and investor facilitation. The China Pakistan joint projects are open to world as well, he added.

The secretary BOI introduced the officers of the PMU who are to facilitate the Chinese as well as foreign investors from Pakistan to the Chinese delegation.

Executive Director General Fareena Mazhar informed the delegation regarding the objectives of the PMU. Its core objective is to provide secretariat support to the BoI and effectively facilitation investors. This newly established unit in BoI is assigned the task to perform the role of a coordinating body for collecting and disseminating the technical and other necessary information amongst all concerned stakeholders and keep intervening in the planning and development of state of the art special economic, export processing and industrial zones across the country.

This unit will provide a much-needed platform for multi-sector coordination, consultation and policy formulation. It will enhance capacity and provide policy and governance advice to support federal, provincial regional governments for establishment and relocation of industries besides attracting foreign direct investment in various sectors.

The PMU will also work to mobilise people to people & academia exchanges, HRD, ensure transfer of knowledge & technology, provide researched based data to implement CPEC industrial cooperation projects in a smooth and steady manner and capture the window of opportunity for structural transformation in Pakistan.

It will also market various investment opportunities available in Pakistan for Chinese and foreign investors and provision of complete business solutions to them to invest in Pakistan.

Secretary BoI Omer Rasul Additional Secretary Muhammad Saleem Ahmad Ranjha were also present on the occasion.