27 October 2004	Wednesday	12 Ramazan 1425

LAHORE, Oct 26: The federal government has decided to redefine the role of the Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC) to use it for establishing new industrial estates and upgrading technology in the existing clusters of small and medium industry in the country through public-private partnership.

Set up with an aim of promoting industry, the PIDC, at present, is considered a sick organization. The government has already disbanded around 18 institutions working under it.

According to sources in the Punjab government, under the proposed plan Federal Industries Minister Jehangir Tarin would be the chairman of the reorganized PIDC.

It will have a chief executive from the private sector, and a high-powered board of directors comprising leading industrialists from all the provinces, enjoying powers to locally decide industry-related matters rather than going to Islamabad.

The PIDC would create a subsidiary company based on the public-private partnership concept to establish the proposed industrial estate at Port Qasim and another for small and medium enterprizes at its 250-acre piece of land in Korangi, Karachi.

It would create such companies for every province for establishing industrial estates there under a systematic manner.

Sources said under a decision taken by the federal government a week ago the PIDC would create companies for every cluster of small and medium industry for its technical upgradation.

It would have the latest technology transferred from abroad and bear the one-time cost of establishing institutes and arranging for the skill-development training of workers there.

Such companies would again be created under the public-private partnership and the industrialists of the clusters like ceramics, granite, sport goods and surgical equipment would share the cost of running their respective institutes.

Sources said the government intended to create such companies and institutes within six months in industrial cities. First such projects would be launched in Lahore, Karachi, Quetta and Peshawar.