Fifth round of Pakistan-Japan Joint Study Group meeting is starting on Monday in Tokyo to reach an agreement on establishment of Pak-Japan Special Economic Zone in Pakistan. Briefing newsmen on a three-day visit of a Pakistani delegation consisting of public and private sectors to Japan, State Minister and Chairman of Board of Investment (BoI) Saleem H.Mandviwalla on Saturday said that the government wants to finalise establishment of the zone during this visit.
Pakistan offers a 10-year tax holiday, duty exemption on export of products from the zone and import of raw material for production there, which is enough to allure the Japanese investors, while they do not set any preconditions before investment there, he said.
A delegation of around 19 members, both from public and private sectors, which will be led by Federal Minister for Planning and Development Makhdoom Shahabuddin, is leaving for Japan on Saturday night to begin the fifth conclusive round of talks in which Pakistan-Japan Joint Study Group will present a report on investment in Pakistan. The report has been evolved in two years, Mandviwalla pointed out.
The government is exerting efforts to attract investment in power generating, chemicals, engineering and infrastructure development sectors for the zone. Engineering sector also includes the downstream of auto-mobile, he said. There are about 1,300 acres of land, which the Sindh government has identified in Dhabiji and 3oo acres of land by National Industrial Park (NIP) for setting up of the zone in Bin Qasim.
Japan will itself decide at which land allocation it is ready to set up the zone. It traditionally intends to develop a cluster of various manufacturing units on a single piece of land and this zone will provide it with an opportunity to materialise its goals properly, Chairman BoI said. To a question, he said that if Japan declines to set up the zone itself then NIP will do it.
Unfolding the visit, he said that there will also be a one-to-one session between the Pakistani and Japanese firms to invest in Pakistan, besides a match-making session of both sides in this connection. Saleem H. Mandviwalla termed the terrorism a big issue, which refrains the foreign investors from investing in Pakistan despite it ranks at 77th in the index of world's better investment friendly countries, according to the World Bank report.
Whereas, India stands at 122nd for the same. To another question, he said that the government has assigned the task to its diplomats world wide to bring investors of respective countries to Pakistan to boost the economy.
The delegation members include Federal Minister for Planning and Development Makhdoom Shahabuddin, Saleem H. Mandviwalla, Minister for State and Chairman of Board of Investment, Zubair Motiwala, Advisor to Chief Minister Sindh on Investment, Mohibullah Shah, Chief Executive Officer, Trade Development Authority of Pakistan, H.E. Mr Noor Muhammad Jadmani, Ambassador of Pakistan to Japan, Abdul Kader Jaffer, President, Pakistan-Japan Business Forum, Masaharu Domichi, General Manager for Pakistan, Mitsubishi Corporation, and others.
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