July 20, 2006	Thursday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 23, 1427

ISLAMABAD, July 19: As a result of some of major initiatives taken by the government towards development of the National Trade Corridor (NTC), the logistics chain has started showing improvement, helping reduce cost of business and increasing competitiveness and productivity of the goods produced in the country.

This was stated by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz while chairing a meeting of the task force on development of NTC at the Prime Minister’s House here on Wednesday.

While reviewing the performance of Pakistan Railways, the prime minister said railways was being converted into a corporation.

The meeting reviewed implementation of the decisions taken earlier, including progress on trade facilitation, modernisation of railways, ports and shipping, motorways, trucking and aviation and air transportation sectors.

The prime minister claimed to have achieved substantial progress on re-designing of procedures and processes, strengthening of infrastructure i.e. roads, railways, airports and ports in a bid to help achieve ambitious export target of $18.6 billion. He stressed meticulous maintenance of the existing infrastructure to ensure a seamless and fast movement of goods.

The prime minister said situated at the confluence of three important regions -- South Asia, Western Asia and Central Asia -- Pakistan enjoyed a unique and strategic position to interlink these regions.

Mr Aziz said due to its geo strategic location Pakistan was in a position to play a vital role in promoting regional trade, and to achieve this objective Pakistan is building trade, energy and transportation corridors.

In addition to this, the prime minister said Pakistan provided the prerequisites to become the regional hub of manufacturing and trade. The National Trade Corridor plan, Mr Aziz said, would be instrumental in building these corridors as well as making Pakistan a regional hub of manufacturing and trade.

The deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, secretaries of communications, ports and shipping, defence and railways and the CBR chairman made presentations on various sectors of the NTC. Communications Minister Muhammad Shamim Siddiqui also attended the meeting.

The prime minister was informed that a deep-water terminal was being built at Keamari, and Port Qasim would have more berths. All this is done with the assistance of the private sector.

He was further informed that substantial progress had been made in trade facilitation by reducing the port dwell time and port charges. Customs clearance has been reduced to an average of 5.57 hours at the KICT from the earlier average of four days. Whereas for imports, the customs clearance time has been reduced to an average of 7.24 hours, the exports goods are cleared within an average time of 0.50 hours at the KICT in Karachi.

The construction of Torkham-Peshawar road, Peshawar Northern Bypass, M-4, Faisalabad-Khanewal, E-5, Sukkur-Shikarpur, E-6, Shikarpur-Ratodero, M-7, Dadu-Dureji-Hub, P. Bhattian-Wazirabad, Hasanabdal-Mansehra will be initiated in 2007. M-1 linked Lahore-Peshawar will be completed in 2007, and the Karakoram Highway is being improved with the help of China.

The defence secretary said progress had been made on planning of construction of two new airports in Islamabad and Gwadar and expansion of the Multan airport. The construction of Islamabad airport will begin by the end of this year.