LAHORE, Feb 20: Punjab finance minister Hasnain Bahadur Dareshak on Monday said the draft of the provincial finance commission award will be sent to the cabinet within two weeks.

Talking to journalists after a seminar here, he said the Rs90 billion award would be announced formally after approval by the Punjab cabinet and subsequently by the governor.

To a query, he said work on the National Finance Commission award was under way, while the departments’ proposals were also being collected for the next provincial budget.

Sundar estate: Punjab finance minister Hasnain Bahadur Dareshak has said the Sundar estate will be opened for investors to build their industrial units till June this year.

He said this while speaking at a seminar on investment opportunities in the UAE, organised by Hamriyah Free Zone, Sharjah government, at a local hotel on Monday.

“Though there is no tax-free zone in Punjab, the provincial government is setting up two industrial estates here — one on 1,500 acres near Lahore and the other on 4,000 acres area in Faisalabad,” he said.

The minister said keeping in view power outages and line loss charges, the government had allowed the industrialists to install their own power generation systems for their manufacturing units in these industrial estates.

He said to facilitate rapid industrialisation of economy, the industrialists would be assisted by all the 30 department in meeting various requirements for their manufacturing units in these estates.

Mr Dareshak said that during the financial year 2004-05, the country’s GDP growth rate remained 8.5 per cent just because of viable economic policies of the present government.

He said Pakistani traders and businessmen should avail themselves of the opportunities offered by Sharjah government to compete in the international market and to be a part of globalisation. They would thus be able to market their products and services effectively in the world market through their overseas offices.

On this occasion, Hamriyah Marketing Manager Hadi Kassem said Hamriyah Free Zone was ideally located for Pakistani community with unmatched incentives for the traders.

He said the geographical location makes the free zone most attractive for Pakistani traders, with its state-of-the-art infrastructure, to target the markets of Europe, America and Africa, simultaneously.

Hamriyah offered 100 per cent foreign ownership, guaranteed repatriation of investment and tax exemption, he said, adding that it also provided a very lenient taxation system with total exemption of personal and corporate income tax.

Pakistani industrialists and traders interested in launching projects at the zone were allowed to employ workers from Pakistan too, he added.

Abdullah-al-Badari also spoke at the seminar attended by prominent businessmen.—APP