April 28, 2002	Sunday	Safar 14, 1423

KARACHI, April 27: About two dozen Pakistani companies are well set to commence their industrial production and commercial operations in the Hamriyah Free Zone in Sharjah, UAE.

Hamriyah is the tenth free zone in sequence to be set up in UAE and second in Sharjah. It is a next generation free zone and offers incentives that far exceeds those given by other free zones in the area. Since commencement of its operations in October 1998 it has attracted an investment of 500 million dollars from 210 companies set up by investors from 19 countries.

“We offer a one-window operation and a completely hassle free environment in Hamriyah,” Engineer Rashid Al Leem, Director General of the Hamriyah Free Zone Authority, informed Dawn on Saturday (April 27). The investors are from the US, Europe, South Africa, India and many parts of the world who throng UAE—a thriving business centre of the world that can be compared to the Asian Tigers.

The investment incentives offer 100 per cent foreign company ownership, total tax exemption, no commercial levies, zero corporate and personal tax and 100 per cent repatriation of capital and profits.

More than 1,500 workers are employed in the business enterprises and Engineer Rashid counted at least 500 Pakistanis among those engaged in gainful employment in Hamriyah.

Engineer Rashid was in Pakistan with his team that included Abdullah Badri and Mr Hussain. Besides Karachi, the team went to Lahore, Sialkot, Gujranwala and Faisalabad before returning back home on Saturday (April 27). They had lengthy sessions with the leaders of the chambers of commerce and industry at each of these cities.

Engineer Rashid informed the Pakistani businessmen about the immense advantages they enjoy in trade and economic relations with the UAE and particularly with Sharjah where economy is buoyant and growth remains unhampered.

“September 11 incident affected us too,” he said while conceding that there was a short pause of business slump. “It is now recovering and picking up fast,” he said and pointed out that few hotels in the UAE reported as much as 80 per cent occupancy. A 60 per cent occupancy in hotels during off-season is normal.

Giving a brief background, he said Hamriyah Free Zone was established by an Emiri decree in November 1995. Spread over 12 million square meters area, all the infrastructure facilities were put in place by October 1998.

Since then, the investors have started showing interest and now 210 companies have been given licences to do business at Hamriyah. Of these about 100 companies are industrial concerns, about 80 trade enterprises and 30 services companies.

Responding to a question, Engineer Rashid said the management team of Hamriyah includes a Human Resource Department. This department is assigned to facilitate the immigration required for each of the project set up in Hamriyah. “Senior management and executives get visas in a day,” he said, while it takes five days for processing visa applications of the unskilled workers.

A unique feature of the Hamriyah he said a land lease grant of 25 years to the investor which is renewable to another period of 25 years. Other free zones offer 15 years lease of land to the investors.