PESHAWAR, May 10: With its agriculture and industrial sectors failing to perform satisfactorily due to variety of reasons, the NWFP is registering minus growth for the last six years, according to official sources.

Lacking fiscal space in its current revenue receipts and expenditure budgets, successive provincial governments, said the sources, could not do much to help the manufacturing and agriculture sectors to perform well during the last one decade.

The newly inducted provincial minister for industries and labour Mohsin Aziz told Dawn that during the last six years the NWFP registered growth rate by minus 10.

“Apart from locational disadvantage, lacklustre industrial base and non-availability of capital-based incentives made the province to undergo minus growth during the last six years since 1996-97 financial year,” said the minister.

Out of the total 1970 industrial units set up in the province, some 640 are completely closed blocking collective capital investment of over Rs13bn.

Whereas out of the operational units, 60 per cent are operating at the ratio of half of their operational capacity, according to a study recently conducted by the industries department, NWFP.

The minister attributed the minus growth rate trend to the non-extension of prudent and capital-based incentives to NWFP by the successive federal governments.

“Incentive package given to the Gadoon Industrial Estate has always been described as a bad experience without realising that it was an ill-conceived plan allowing people of other provinces to misuse the facility and run away from the Gadoon after making quick money,” said Mohsin Aziz, a former APTMA president.

The province, he added, needed a real capital-based incentive package that should facilitate the investors encouraging real capital investment carrying no room for exploiters to misuse the facility as was the case with the incentive package meant for Gadoon Amanzai industrial estate.

The car manufacturing sector alone is availing incentives, said Mohsin, to the tune of Rs3bn annually in the form of tax and duty exemptions hence the NWFP also deserved a prudent incentive package.

The NWFP’s industrial sector, said the minister, needed to be strengthened to help it prepare for meeting the future challenge arising out of the fast changing geo-political situation in the region.

NWFP’s industrial and trade circles, he added, stood greater chances in Afghanistan and Central Asian Republics offering immense market opportunities to the Pakistani business community especially the Frontier province’s.

The provincial cabinet, said the sources, is likely to be given a detailed presentation on the state of affairs of the provincial industrial sector, its shortcomings, performance and the much needed measures to help it stand on its feet.

Whereas, the newly appointed provincial industries minister claimed that the province had registered — 10 ( minus ten) growth rate during the last six years, the industries department study conducted recently claimed that the province experienced major capital investment in the manufacturing sector during the last decade of the last century.

“The maximum industrialization in terms of number of units established and investment made occurred during the 1991-2001,” contained the study. According to it, a total capital investment of Rs48.5bn was made in the above mentioned period.