SWABI, Oct 14: Export Processing Zone Authority (EPZA) Chairman Syed Akbar Hussain has asked the Gadoon Chamber of Commerce and Industry to prepare a report about the entrepreneurs interested in running units in the EPZ.

He has also asked the chamber to prepare a report as to how many industrialists, whose units are either operational or closed down in the Gadoon Amazai Industrial Estate (GAIE), were interested in the Gadoon EPZ.

This was stated by the chamber’s secretary-general, while briefing reporters about the EPZA chairman’s visit to the Gadoon EPZ on Tuesday.

He said Mr Hussain had assured the industrialists of the GAIE that the Gadoon EPZ would be made a vibrant zone and the government had already started work on it, and was conducting meetings in this connection.

During his visit to the GAIE he discussed various aspects of the Gadoon EPZ with the entrepreneurs and had noted their proposal to make it vibrant, the secretary-general told mediamen.

Since the abrupt withdrawal of 100 incentives from the GAIE in May 1991, the establishing of EPZ in Gadoon was the first serious attempt by the government to prevent the estate from a total collapse and scuttle the intention of the people to restart the cultivation of the poppy crop. The GAIE was set up for the poppy growers where they would get employment for giving up poppy cultivation.

The GAIE was converted into EPZ when NWFP Governor Syed Iftikhar Hussian Shah, Federal Minister for Industries and Production Liaquat Jatoi and Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani visited the GAIE on Aug 6.