Islamabad: The Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI) has
called upon the government to consider early groundbreaking of Special
Economic Zone under CPEC in Islamabad in order to boost industrial and
investment activities in the region.
Ahmed Hassan Moughal, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry
said that Prime Minister Imran Khan during a recent meeting held to review
progress on CPEC was informed that Rashakai-KP, Dhabeji-Sindh and M-3
Faisalabad-Punjab SEZs would be ready for groundbreaking by June this year,
which was very encouraging. However, he said that groundbreaking of IT SEZ
in Islamabad could get unnecessarily delay as the government has not
selected any site or acquired land for this project so far. He urged that
government should strictly follow the timelines set for the development of
prioritized SEZs to complete them on time.
Ahmed Hassan Moughal said that China had shown interest to establish over
100 SEZs in Pakistan under CPEC, but it was unfortunate that due to lack of
interest from Pakistan side, only 9 SEZs have been approved so far for
development. He said that development of more SEZs under CPEC was of
paramount importance to promote investment, industrialization and
employment generation in Pakistan.
He emphasized that government should consider increasing SEZs under CPEC to maximize their benefits for the economy. He said development of more SEZs under CPEC would also put Pakistan on the path of sustainable industrial growth and urged that government should pay priority attention to this issue.
