PRIME Minister Imran Khan on Friday performed the ground breaking of Allama Iqbal Industrial city in Faisalabad, the first of three prioritized Special Economic Zones to be established under the multibillion dollar CPEC. Speaking on the occasion, Imran Khan said the SEZs will provide the requisite environment to Chinese companies to relocate to Pakistan. In fact, there are many Chinese companies which have repeatedly expressed willingness to relocate their industrial units to Pakistan but unfortunately there has been delay on our part to go ahead with the SEZs- the important component of second phase of CPEC. Hence, the groundbreaking of Faisalabad Special Economic Zone is an important development and our authorities concerned must expedite efforts to ensure timely completion of work on it with provision of all amenities and facilities. Faisalabad SEZ is strategically located on Motorway {M-4} and it is expected to create three hundred thousand jobs for the people of Punjab in the next five years. This SEZ alone is to attract approximately four hundred billion dollars of investment in automobiles, value added textiles, engineering, pharmaceutical, food processing, chemicals, construction material and packaging. During the first wave of relocation in 2006, the Chinese industrial units mostly shifted to South East Asian countries including Vietnam and Malaysia who were now leading the whole region in exports. We missed that opportunity but now a big opportunity is once again knocking at our doors and we should extend maximum facilitation to the Chinese industries to shift their businesses to Pakistan. For this, we also need to fast track work on the operationalization of other SEZs at the earliest. The relocation of Chinese industrial units will undoubtedly revolutionize our industrial sector, help us enhance import substitution and lift up exports besides benefitting from the Chinese technology in different sectors. Joint ventures between Chinese companies and domestic private sector should also be encouraged at these SEZs to achieve the goal of transforming Pakistan into a manufacturing hub. Just by benefiting from Chinese packaging and preservation technology, our country can capture a major pie in the world’s Halal Food Market of over three trillion dollars.
