Call For Declaring HITE As Special Economic Zone

(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Call for declaring HITE as Special Economic Zone

KARACHI, Nov 7 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 07th Nov, 2016 ) : President of Lasbela Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Ismail Suttar has urged the government to declare Hub Industrial and Trading Estate (HITE) Phase-Two as a Special Economic Zone (SEZ).

In a statement here on Monday, he said that SEZs were designated areas with special economic regulations which were conducive to foreign direct investment. The economic activities in these well-defined geographic areas were promoted by a set of policy measures not applicable to the rest of the country like receiving tax incentives and the opportunity to pay lower tariffs.

"We have seen China undergo an exponential economic growth by executing this idea and now it has more than 38 such zones in the country. Pakistan established SEZ Act in 2012 and according to the law, the Federal or provincial governments can either themselves set up an SEZ or they can achieve it in collaboration with the private sector", Ismail Suttar said.

Sindh and Punjab have had three zones each which were declared as SEZs and Balochistan province also wanted that HITE phase-2 be declared as SEZ. HITE Phase-1 in Balochistan started with only a couple of industries.

Over a quarter of a century, the area saw rapid growth and now consists of more than 300 industries were operating ; including the industries at the marble city which had been developed by the LCCI and Lasbela Industrial Estate Development Agency (LIEDA) without any government funding. Hence, it had already established infrastructure for a thriving industrial area in HITE, he said.