SWABI, June 15: The president of Gadoon Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Tariq Majeed, and other traders’ representatives have demanded of the government to set up the Export Processing Zone (EPZ) in Gadoon instead of Risalpur which they said had all the required infrastructure.

Mr Tariq told journalists here on Sunday that President Musharraf, NWFP Chief Minister Akram Durrani, and federal and provincial ministers had been informed about the dismal situation of the Gadoon estate.

He said establishment of the EPZ in Gadoon would not only boost the industrialists’ position, but also help save the ill-fated estate from a total collapse.

Mr Majeed, flanked by other industrialists, said all of them were of the view that due to “location disadvantage” of Gadoon, the estate needed some incentives for survival.

Though all the previous governments, he said, had pledged to restore the incentives to the estate, they failed.

Revival of the sick units and incentives to the running industries would infuse a new soul in the industrialists, he said.

If the estate collapsed, it would be the government’s failure because the people who had abandoned poppy cultivation for getting jobs in the estate might go back to their business. The industrialists investing money in the estate attached great expectations to the Gadoon estate.

He expressed the hope that the government would restore some of the incentives to the Gadoon Amazai Industrial Estate.