EV bikes, fans, LED lights: Chinese investors waiting for policies before initiating projects: EDB chief

LAHORE: A large number of Chinese investors want to initiate projects in the fields of EV bikes, fans and LED lights and waiting for the policies to be approved.

This was informed by the CEO, Engineering Development Board Raza Abbas Shah during a meeting with the LCCI President Kashif Anwar here on Thursday at LCCI. Executive Committee Members were also present in the meeting.

“We want the Chambers to send us the budget proposals as soon as possible because sooner the proposals arrive, we will have more time to prepare”, said CEO and added that if the dollar goes to a certain level, it will not come down. He said that we can work in other areas also as the government is going to present the LED lights policy by July 01.

Fans policy is tabled and will be approved soon and manufacturing and installation of fans above 80 watts will not be allowed. He said that ongoing situation also presents a huge opportunity for the industry of lighting and fans.

He added that to promote EV bikes, we came up with the proposal to subsidise a certain number of EV bikes. We have also issued 23 licenses for EV bikes as this is a new technology. He said that the strategy to subsidise a certain number of bikes in order to bring them on roads. It will also develop related industry like lithium batteries and motor industry.

He said that solar policy is now on table and to be approved by 31st March. EV bikes policy being submitted to ECC. He said that we will also share our solar policy draft with LCCI to add their suggestions.

He said that a number of Chinese manufacturing companies are waiting for a policy to invest and this policy will made it feasible to bring that industry in Pakistan.

The CEO said that although it is a time of crisis and we are facing energy, foreign exchange reserves depletion, not opening of LCs and container stuck at ports issues but nevertheless, this desperate time also present a lot of opportunities.

The CEO EDB said that there is a saying that “never wastes a good crisis” so we have to extract opportunities and should increase our exports. He said that EDB’s primary function is to formulate policies for the engineering industry.

He said that the foreign reserves restrictions were imposed last year but we managed to get some relief for the new industry like mobiles and others.

He said that the current account deficit is always there and we can fill it with increase in Foreign Direct Investment and remittances.

He said that there are LCs issues, container stuck at ports issues but we are not able to do much about these at this stage. We can work in other areas like rationalization of tariffs, removal of taxes on raw materials etc.

He said that there should be a unified proper strategy for tariffs. We have written to all the chambers to send their proposals as we have initiated the budgetary exercise. The CEO EDB said that we cannot do much on the sales tax and the custom duty as these are now the domain of the Ministry of Commerce.

He said that in order to grow the industrial sector, economical raw materials should be provided to the industry and the maximum number of raw materials should be localised because we have raw material issue and we need to fix it with joint efforts as for now the import is necessary for exports and for that we need to correct our tariffs and to sit down together.

He said that our target is that the industry should not be coming to the government for licensing and approvals. There should be a mechanism in place where we don’t even need a desk. He said that LCCI previously helped us in formulation us in mobile policy and we are hopeful that the LCCI and EDB will sign an MoU to collaborate and jointly do further work.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023