KARACHI - Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah has said that his government has created conducive investment atmosphere in the province.
The Sindh government provides all necessary facilities and protection to the national as well as foreign investors and this is why leading multinational companies are interested to invest in different sectors in Sindh.
He was talking to a delegation of China Shandong International firm led by its chairman Sun Liang here at the CM House on Monday. The other members of the delegation include Ms Cheng Yan, Zhang Yangjun, Wang Sinjun, Wang Xu and Sun Lei. The CM was assisted by provincial ministers Murad Ali Shah, Jam Khan Shoro, Chief Secretary Siddique Memon, Principal Secretary Alamuddin Bullo and others. “Karachi is the financial capital of Pakistan having the headquarters of banks, financial institutions and business,” he said. Sindh is the regional power house of future in a sense that it has vast coalfields in Thar which can produce 100,000MW for at least 300 years, he said.
He said the wind corridor had the potential of generating 50,000MW. Sindh produces 56 percent oil and 78 percent gas of the country, he added. “Sindh has vast agricultural base with 5.45 million hectares of cultivable land and 350 kilometres long coastline base with tremendous opportunities of tourism and fisheries sector.” Sindh Finance and Development Minister Murad Ali Shah said the provincial government had made necessary legislation to facilitate the investors. “We have Sindh Public Procurement Act which governs all public procurements, including public-private partnership projects and it has been developed with the World Bank guidelines. Sindh has the first Public-Private Partnership Act 2010 enacted under the guidelines of Asian Development Bank (ADB),” he added. This is a centralised forum in which all departmental agencies are present.
Additional Secretary Development M Waseem said the projects executed under the public-private partnership mode include Hyderabad-Mirpurkhas Dual Carriageway Project, Jhirk-Mulla Katiar Bridge project and NICH Security and Fire Safety contract, Sindh Nooriabad gas power project, Karachi Thatta Dual Carriageway Project, Education Management Orgs Project and health projects. He said Hyderabad-Mirpurkhas Dual-Carriageway Project was a toll-based model. It has 27 years concession life and had two years for construction period. It is a four-lane 67 kilometres road launched at Rs6.2 billion by a Korean company. This project has 40 percent commercial debt, 30 percent soft loan and 30 percent equity. Construction on this project was completed in 2012 and it is operating successfully as a self-sustainable model. Waseem said, similarly, the Jhirk Mulla Katiar Bridge was a Rs4.5 billion project. The project consists of 25 kilometres (two-lane road) plus 1.7-kilometre bridge. There is 75 percent commercial loan and 25 percent equity. It is likely to be completed by mid 2016. Talking about the up-coming projects, Murad Shah said Ghotki-Kandhkot Project, Hyderabad-Badin Road Project, Tando Muhammad Khan-Badin Road were in the pipeline. Secretary Transport Taha Farooqui giving presentation on Mass Transit Plan said Brown Line was a good project with route length of 18.5 kilometre from Nagan Chowrangi to Singer Chowrangi with 18 stations on the route. Its ridership would be 736,000 per day and the system capacity would be around 45,000 persons per hour per day. The project cost would be around Rs116 billion. Talking about the BRT Red Line, he said the project starts from Mazar-i-Quaid and ends at Malir Cantt. The total length of the corridor is 21.5 kilometres with 24 stations. The ridership per day would be around 350,000 while the system capacity would be 13,000 per hour per day and its cost has been estimated at 15 billion rupees.
The Chinese investors showed interest in the transport projects. They took details of the projects where there is no encroachment and no issue of land acquisition.