January 25, 2006	Wednesday	Zilhaj 24, 1426

KARACHI, Jan 25: Dr Salman Shah, adviser to the prime minister on finance and revenue, has said that the government is planning to build a national logistic corridor from Karachi to Peshawar.

The corridor will be built at a cost of $5-6 billion and it will ensure a transportation time of containers and trucks of not more than 36 hours from Karachi to Peshawar.

The funding for the project had already been approved by the World Bank under the heading of national trade corridor, he said during a meeting with members of the Site Association of Industry on Tuesday.

On rising utility bills prices, Dr Shah maintained that prices could not come down. “Energy will become more expensive as it is a worldwide phenomenon.”

He said: “The only way we can get cheap gas will be from Iran if the gas pipeline is finalized,” says a press release of the Site association.

“Our industry will have to learn to be more efficient. Currently, the local industry needs to build economies of scale, improve productivity of labour and efficiently manage energy. All these factors will help our industry become competitive.” He asks how Sri Lanka and Turkey compete in apparel markets.

Earlier, Site Association of Industry Chairman Ameen Bandukda said that inflation was going to be the biggest problem facing the industry this year. “Having touched almost double digits, inflation is still ruling at eight per cent. This has obviously also affected mark-up rates and increased the cost of business.”

He said the government had not taken any practical steps in providing an enabling environment to the industry and the cost of production was still going up, making local products uncompetitive in the global markets.

Mr Bandukda said that gas prices had been revised six times in the last three-and-a-half years and had increased by over 44 per cent.

The Site body chief said that high economic growth could be achieved and manufacturing could be made competitive if the cost of doing business was brought down.