PESHAWAR: Prime Minister Imran Khan will perform the groundbreaking of the much-anticipated Rashakai special economic zone today (Friday).

It will be the first economic zone in the country to be launched under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project.

In a video message released here, special assistant to the chief minister on industries Abdul Karim Khan said the project had attracted $128 million Chinese investment.

“The project will be completed in three phases,” he said, adding that all plots in the first phase has been sold out.

The CM’s aide said the first industrial unit to be operationalised at the end of the current year was being built at the cost of $242 million.

He said 10 megawatts electricity had already been supplied to the project and that work on grid station and transmission lines would be completed within the deadline.

Mr Karim said the primer would also give away allotment letters.

In the message, finance minister Taimur Saleem Jhagra said the project would open vistas of industrialisation for the province and provide 200,000 direct and indirect jobs and billions of dollars worth of investment.

He also said the SEZ would turn the province into a business-friendly destination.

Meanwhile, chief executive officer of the KP Board of Investment and Trade Hassan Daud Butt told Dawn that the Rashakai SEZ project was being executed in a ‘special purpose vehicle mode’ jointly by the China Road and Bridges Corporation and KP Economic Zones Development and Management Company.

He said the Rashakai Economic Zone Development Company would complete the project in three phases.

Published in Dawn, May 28th, 2021