December 16, 2002	Monday	Shawwal 11, 1423

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KISH (Iran), Dec 15: Iran is inviting Pakistani investors to come and invest in its latest trade free zone coming up fast in the island Kish, some 18 kilometres south of Iran’s southern coast and about 300 kilometres away from the port city of Bander Abbas.

Extending the offer through a group of visiting Pakistani journalists, here the TFZ authority officials said that with Dubai only 25 minutes away from the island by air and four hours away by sea, they expected Kish to become an important transshipment centre in the region including the Central Asian states.

And true enough, Dubai, the busiest port city in the region, and a year-round tourist attraction having perhaps the costliest hotels in the area, now overflows with visitors, shoppers and ships round the year and its spill-over is likely to find Kish, with its open spaces and more economical resorts and berths, just the right thing at the right time.

Kish, a coral island, is very rich in history. It has an area of 90 square kilometres. The shape of the island is oval, measuring 15 kilometres long in the east-west and 7 kilometres wide in the north-south direction.

According to the latest registered statistics, Kish has over 16,500 inhabitants, including 1,500 natives who live in original Saffain district. They wear traditional dresses, speak Farsi and Arabic and have remained close to their heritage.

In the six years that it has taken Kish to come up to its present stage, investors mostly from mainland Iran, Canada and Germany have taken advantage of relatively cheap land, economic utility costs and reasonable wages.

Most Canadian oil companies active in South Pars gasfield manage their logistics and technical services from Kish Island. Canada has also expressed its desire to expand its operations in oil and gas fields from the island, including establishing a stock exchange for oil to help expedite oil marketing activities via the island.

Interestingly, the government of Islamic Republic of Iran is spending next to nothing from its own budgetary resources for developing the TFZ. Instead, the required resources are being mobilized by selling land and investment permissions to the investors.

An overseas Iranian, Hussain Sabit, with 30 years of experience in international hotel business, has bought acres and acres of land on the Island. He is building a 200 guestroom 5-star hotel called Darius Grand Hotel. Expected to be opened in March next year, the hotel takes you back several centuries into the Iranian history and has a hall with replica of Takhat-i-Jamshed itself.

Sabit is also building one of the largest Dolphin parks in the world on the island

He has already planted in the park thousands of palm trees imported from all over the world. This is supposed to have brought about a welcome change in the climate of the island.

Butterflies, exotic birds, cactus and silk gardens, world of orchards, oceanarium, submarine aquarium, artificial rain forest and volcano mountain projects are under design. Nobody wants to talk about how much Mr Sabit intends to invest in making Kish an important tourist spot on the world map. But one of his aides, who is supervising the construction of the hotel, told Pakistani journalists that there is no way, Sabit could get back his investment in his lifetime.

“He is doing this for his country. He thinks he owes it to his motherland which he left some 30 years ago in search of greener pastures. He made all his money outside Iran,” the aide confided.

The Island of Kish has a number of wonders of its own. There is a Karaz system (Under-ground water channel) called Qanat, nobody knows when it was built but many believe that centuries ago this system had supplied sweet water not only to the Island, but also to many other places in the region including Dubai.

Kish also has a modern University with 500 students. It has developed close relations with Australian Universities. In IT it is collaborating with Malaysia. The officials at the University expressed their desire to establish relations with seats of excellence in Pakistan as well.

The Kish Free Zone Organization (KFZO), an autonomous company offers all kinds of facilities to the intending investors. Construction materials at the discretion of the zone authority have exemption from payment of customs duties. Machineries, raw materials and spare parts too are exempt from payment of customs duties. The rest of the goods are subject to customs duties and in case of re-exporting, 0.3 per cent of total value of goods are to be paid as service charges.

The import of goods for temporary stock at the special warehouse of the zone for a specified period is permitted and warehousing cost at Kish port is 5 dollars per square meter per month. The import of goods manufactured in Iran Free trade Zones to Kish Free Zone are subject to 50 per cent discount on customs duties.

Tariffs of customs duties in Kish are as under: Goods specially imported for consuming purposes in Kish: Between 2% to 3%; commercial goods: between 3% to 16%; Used electrical/non-electrical home appliances: 50%; Cars/automobiles: between 26% to 43% and; Cigrarettes/tobaccos: 20%.

The export of goods manufactured with domestic or foreign raw materials are generally authorized. Based on the extent of added value of goods, the goods manufactured in the free zone to the mainland, are exempt from customs duties. However, while exporting such goods to the mainland, the customs duties are included only for the non-domestic raw materials.

The export of foreign goods (consuming, raw material, machines) to the mainland is permitted but their clearance from customs is subject to observance of the General Import-Export regulations as well as customs regulations of the mainland. The export of domestic goods from free zone to foreign countries is subject to observance of general import-export regulations of the country.

The exit of goods to the mainland which are already imported from the mainland into the free zone for the purpose of repair or for finishing is permitted, but for replaced or added parts and components, customs duties will be paid according to the General import-export regulations of the mainland.

The temporary exit of goods from free zone into the mainland for the purpose of repairs or finishing is authorized if the permission has already been granted by KFZO and while returning into the zone, they will be exempt from customs duties.