PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government will contract a Chinese company next month to develop the Rashakai Special Economic Zone, Chief Minister Mahmood Khan was told on Saturday.

The disclosure was made during a meeting of the public-private partnership committee at the Chief Minister’s House here.

The committee met for the approval of the revised concession agreement for Rashakai SEZ, said a statement issued here.

The chief minister said the government was committed to providing investors with a conducive environment in the province for which multiple initiatives had been taken, including the strengthening of communication networks and provision of cheap electricity to industrial consumers.

CM says initiative part of govt’s industrialisation, investment plan

He said the government had focused its attention on revenue generation by exploiting the province’s strategic location, natural resources and business friendly environment.

“The Rashakai special economic zone will play an important role in the government’s plan for rapid investment and industrialisation.

This project is the top most priority of both the KP and Chinese governments under the CPEC framework,” he said.

Under the plans, the economic zone will be established over an area of 1000 acres for which electricity will be supplied by the federal government in three phases.

The PC-I for the supply of 210MW electricity at the cost of Rs1.83 billion has already been approved.

The 10MW electricity will be provided by Feb 29, 70MW by next Dec and the remaining 80MW by Dec 2021.

A PC-I valuing Rs1.2 billion has also been approved for gas supply.

Work has been initiated on Phase-I regarding the establishment of access roads from Wali Interchange on Peshawar-Islamabad Motorway to Zero Point of the economic zone.

Under the concession agreement, the project will be implemented in three phase.

In the first phase, 247 acres of land will be developed to be followed by the development of 355 acres of land in Phase-II and 399 acres of land in Phase-III.

Around 80 per cent of the work force, including labourers, deployed during the construction period, will be Pakistani nationals.

Published in Dawn, January 12th, 2020