Cut in edible oil duty ruled out

Federal government has ruled out any possibility of cut in edible oil duty in the upcoming budget 2007-08. Addressing a press conference at PIDC House on Thursday Jehangeer Tareen, Federal Minister for Industries, said that despite all time high prices in the international market, there is no plan under considering to cut the import duty on palm oil import, as government believed that this relief would not pass on to masses.
However, he said that government would announce subsidy on essential items including ghee and cooking oil through utility stores aimed to provide relief to the general public. He said that edible oil prices have been raised by 40 percent in the international market and around 20 percent in the local market, while country depends over 75 percent of import of edible oil, therefore government is focusing targeted subsidy to reduce the prices of food items.
"Government is planning to introduce new industrial estates aimed that industrial growth is the main objective of the economy," he said and added that three new industrial estates would be established in the Karachi.
He said that a modern and state of the art industrial estate is being established at Super Highway on 250 acres , where the all necessary facilities would be provide to the industries through one window operation. Another industrial estate on 1000 acres would be develop at Port Qasim on the land of Pakistan Steel, while the third industrial zone for small and medium enterprises would be establish at Korangi for the promotion of engineering goods, he informed. He said that government would remove hurdles in the import of industrial machinery and units by rationalising the import tariff in the next budget to promote the industrialisation in the country. An industrial estate also has been planed at the new developing port city of Gwader and government of Balochistan has granted it permission by allotting around 1000 acres part of land, he said.
He said that government has decided to formulate some rules for export processing zones with collaboration of stakeholder adding, "we have instructed to the Karachi export processing zones representatives that they should be submit their proposals by the end of July".