Business relations between Pakistan and China bound to expand: Sindh Minister

KARACHI, March 15: Sindh Minister for Industries and Commerce and Cooperative Department Jam Ikramullah Dharejo said on Monday afternoon that the business relations between Pakistan and China were bound to expand.

In his speech, as a key speaker in Sindh Industrial Cooperation B2B Investment Conference (Sindh Chapter) organized by Board of Investment (BOI) here, he maintained that the Sindh provincial government believed in business beyond borders and that was why we efficiently participated in China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) initiatives.

Dharejo mentioned that Hydro China, Shanghai Powergen, China Ghezouba Group, Fieldcore GE, Siemens Gamesa, Goldwind were the international companies which had invested in energy generation. The investors were invited in this sector and particularly Keti Bandar Power Project was ready to start, he added.

The minister informed that more than 25,900 kilometers road network was spread all over the province which accommodated the farmers to market, freight and passengers transportation traffic.

He said that this road network had increased the job markets, agri-fields, tourism and travel activities. “The successful public-private partnership projects on roads like Hyderabad-Mirpurkhas dual carriage way, Jhirk-Mulakatiyar bridge way and others have provided great benefits to people and investors,” he remarked.

Dharejo noted that the provincial government was establishing Special Economic Zones (SEZ) like Dhabeji SEZ and Khairpur SEZ.

“All the sectors are warmly welcome to establish the business unit and had benefits of incentives prescribed as the SEZ Act 2012,” he underscored.

The minister elaborated that the Sindh Industrial Trade Estates were also established to strengthen the industrial base of Sindh. “There were nine estate sites developed to boost the urban and rural economy in Sindh. About 4450 acres in Karachi were reserved under SITE which was one of the largest industrial estate reserve sites in Asia,” he contended.

He told the audience that there were around 19300 small, medium, mega industries all over Sindh working on services, logistics, manufacturing industrial machinery, electronics machinery, paper, toys and sports material, textile, leather, footwear, furniture, glass and glassware, food processing, pharmaceuticals, warehousing, construction and estate.

He said there were 807 small, medium and mega scale pharmaceutical companies/factories registered in Pakistan and 382 were established in Sindh. Karachi had great potential in pharmaceutical that out of 382 companies, 371 were established in Karachi.

He expressed the confidence that the conference would pave the way of strong relations between enterprises of China and Pakistan.