Islamabad: The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet has directed to formulate plans within 30 days for providing electricity and gas facilities to the Special Economic Zones (SEZs), a news source reported. In the meeting, the ECC also requested plans for reducing investment proposal processing times by half.
Finance Minister Asad Umar chaired the session. The meeting also approved PKR 833 million to clear the dues of Pakistan Machine Tool Factory (PMTF) employees.
Board of Investment (BoI) Chairman Haroon Sharif informed the ECC in a presentation that SEZs currently receive only 10% of the electricity and gas supplies needed.
The total power requirement of the 10 zones stands at 972 MW. Only 96.7 MW, however, is made available. Total gas requirement, on the other hand, is estimated at around 248.5 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd). However, only a volume of 25 mmcfd is received.
The chairman also informed that many governance-related issues also persist in SEZs, due to the lack of a property regulatory framework commissioned for these zones.
