PAKISTAN OFFERS DEDICATED ECONOMIC ZONE FOR MALAYSIANS

By SAJAD HUSSEIN

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 20 (Bernama) -- Pakistan has offered Malaysian investors a
dedicated economic zone to be operated on a Build-Own-Operate (BOO) basis, its
High Commissioner to Malaysia Lt-Gen (Rtd) Tahir Mahmud Qazi said Friday.

He said the offer was a formal follow-up to the proposal made by
the Malaysian Trade delegation to Pakistan last November.

The offer also comes with several incentives which include a five-year tax
holiday for investors and 10 years for developers at the zone.

The other incentives are:

+ Duty-Free import of capital goods

+ Minimum land size for factories at least 50 acres with 50 to 100 year lease;

+One-stop approval; and

+Protection for investors through an Act of parliament.

Tahir said there was no restriction on the type of industries, it could be
food processing, fisheries, halal products manufacturing and capital goods
production.

He said since Pakistan had a big reservoir of human resources, it would be
ideal to have industries that were labour intensive.

On trade ties between the two countries, Tahir said Malaysian exports to
Pakistan recorded US$1.7 billion last year compared to US$1.07 billion in 2007,
registering a 59 percent increase.

Malaysian imports from Pakistan also rose by 27 percent to US$103.8 million
last year from US$84.4 million the previous year.

Tahir was confident that the Malaysian Pakistan Closer Economic
Participation Agreement, which came into effect on Jan 1 last year, would
immensely benefit trade between both countries.

Under the agreement, both countries will gradually reduce tariff on each
others goods, making them competitive in the world market.

Last month, Pakistan announced customs duties reduction schedule for 5,912
Malaysian goods from now until 2014.

-- BERNAMA