KARACHI, July 29: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has said that the federal government is in the process of finding appropriate patches of lands all over the country to set up a chain of industrial parks in order to open new avenues for jobs through increasing industrial growth.

Efforts are being made to equip these industrial parks with all the facilities, he said while addressing the project commencement ceremony of Korangi Creek Industrial Park and Karachi Tools, Dyes and Moulds Centre at the Sindh Governor House on Saturday.

The idea behind setting up of these industrial parks is to get closer the private and public sector partnerships so that issues of joblessness and poverty can also be addressed through opening up of new job avenues.

He recalled that investors had doubts in their mind before purchasing a land regarding land encroachment and speculative trading had pushed up land prices at phenomenal levels that hampered industrial development. In order to eradicate these hindrances, the government had decided to enhance the role of both private and public sectors.

He urged the competent authority, which looks after the Korangi Creek Industrial Park, to give the plots to only genuine investors and industrialists and check before handing over the plots. He said that the authority should also check that the plots were being given to potential users instead of land speculators and grabbers.

He said that poverty and joblessness had reduced in Pakistan but these two important issues still exist and they can be handled through opening new industrial clusters in the new industrial parks.

Shaukat Aziz said that the government was trying to change country’s image from being a “textile country” which accounts for 60 per cent of the economy. “We now should and will be called a diversified country and not a textile country,” he said adding that the government is actively focussing in boosting value addition in engineering, information technology (IT) and other potential sectors. He urged the private sector to come up and play its due role.

On rising cost of doing business, he said that the era of demanding subsidies and other incentives had gone. It is time to find out fresh ways and means to control the business cost. For example, he said the government was trying to enhance public and private sector partnerships so that the role of private sector could be enhanced by reducing public sector interference to speed up industrial activities.

The government, he said, is also focussing on improving skills of labour and the new industrial parks would have the facility in improving the skills of workers through government-owned and the private sector skill and technical training centres. By getting the training, a worker will have chance to improve his pay scale and get higher salaries besides it will help in improving the quality of locally produced goods as well as improving the standard of workers’ life.

The premier said that Pakistan was facing challenges like improving productivity at the domestic level and competitiveness of its goods in the foreign markets. There is no second grade of product that competes in the world markets. Only high quality goods lure the buyers.

Earlier, Federal Minister for Industries and Production, Jehangir Khan Tareen advised the industrialists to hire skilled workers which could be of big help in reducing their cost of production through their skills and expert working.

The Korangi Creek Industrial Park (KCIP) is spanned over 250 acres of land in which sectors like garments, IT, gem and jewellery, packaging, food processing have been targeted. The infrastructure development work will kick off from August 14.

Munir Banna of Karachi Tools, Dyes and Moulds Centre said that 35 per cent civil work would be completed by October. The centre will be equipped to raise the skill level of 550 workers annually as part of it training activities.