A new industrial policy is in final stage for boosting industrial sector and it would soon be presented in a meeting of the Federal Cabinet for approval. Minister for Industries and Production Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani Monday told the National Assembly during the question-hour session. He said that that the policy was being finalised in consultation with all stakeholders and it would help give a boost to the industrial sector.
The Minister said that the policy has many incentives for the industrial sector. He added that the policy would also be presented in the House for discussion. Responding to a question about increasing cooking, the minister said that the price of oil has been increased at international level which also affected in Pakistan. He said that the government is trying its level best to control the prices of eatable items.
He said that the industrial production and growth rate has been affected economic decline at international level, load shedding and banking markup. Answering to another supplementary, he said that the government wants to 100 % indigenizing of auto industry. He said that at this time, there is 60 % indigenize of auto industry.
Replying to a question of Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao of PPP-Sherpao, the Minister said that it is good proposal to set up task force for the development of industrial sector. He said that the government would consider the proposal of honorable member. In another reply, the Minister said that the Ministry is collecting and compiling the data of selected 37 Large Scale Manufacturing Industries.
Whereas Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) Computes Quantum Index of Manufacturing (QIM) on the basis of 100 items with total weight of 75.08% of value added, he said. He said that according to the Data provided by FBS the growth rate of large scale manufacturing industries of the country had picked up in the year 2008-09 to+4.84%. However the growth rate after having plunged to -2.30% has picked up and now it is +1.03% in 2010-11 (July-January), he said.
Responding to a question, Bijarani said during the past three years, 28 projects had been initiated under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP),out of these 18 were in various phases of implementation, while the remaining projects could not be started for one reason or the other. "The total portfolio of these projects is Rs 2,11.950 million, where as 10 projects/Common Facility Centres costing Rs 701.217 million are approved by not yet funded," he said.