Federal Industries and Production Minister Jehangir Khan Tareen has approved installation of six large-scale model quarries in the next two years to produce 3,000 tonnes marble per quarry as a pilot project for development of marble and granite sector. He gave the approval at a meeting arranged by the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (Smeda) with the stakeholders of marble, granite, gem and jewellery sectors here on Friday.
According to a press release issued here by the ministry, the working groups set up by the minister to design development strategies for gems, jewellery, marble and granite sectors had submitted reports to the minister.
Industries and Production secretary, Dr Mutawakkil Qazi, Warren Weinstein of the USAID and Smeda Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Shahab Khwaja were present on the occasion.
Gems sector stakeholders group was led by Asif Khan, Chairman, All Pakistan Commercial Exporters Association, whereas, Assadur Rehman headed the jewellery group in the meeting.
The minister said that the government would arrange the required fund of Rs 30 million for this pilot project. He urged the strategy working group to accomplish this task by February 2005 so that the experience could be transformed into a complete nation-wide strategy.
The minister said that the matters relating to training, technology, infrastructure and policy would also be addressed amicably in consultation with the concerned ministries and departments at the government level.
He appreciated the way Smeda had worked to design recommendations for the development strategies of marble, granite, gems and jewellery sectors. He said that the same sort of studies should be carried out for the rest of the priority areas without any delay.-PR
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