ADB, BOI jointly organized a stakeholder consultation on SEZs development

ISLAMABAD, Feb 20 (APP):The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Board of Investment (BOI) Wednesday jointly organized a stakeholder consultation on special economic zones (SEZs) development in Pakistan.
The consultation workshop held with the support of United Kingdom’s Department for International Development and attended by over 80 key officials from the federal and provincial governments, academia and private sector, discussed the road-map for fast-track and evidence-based SEZs development, said a statement issued by ADB here.

Secretary BOI Sardar Ahmad Nawaz Sukhera opening the consultation highlighted the new approach for SEZs development in Pakistan, which has been envisioned during the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) meeting held on 4 February 2019 including clarifying the role of federation and provincial governments for more effective SEZs development in Pakistan.
He stated that BOI is fully committed to fast-track the SEZs approval process time from 90 days to 45 days.
ADB’s Country Director for Pakistan, Ms. Xiaohong Yang, in her remarks underscored the need to clear up misunderstanding surrounding SEZs development, assess SEZs progress so far and discuss on how to move forward for a more targeted and synchronized approach.
She emphasized that China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) are in full swing that make the need for SEZs as part of economic corridor development paramount in Pakistan, to transform these mainly road corridors into true economic corridors to revive, diversify and sustain the export oriented manufacturing sector to generate jobs and prosperity for all.
She said the economic corridors are needed to fully realize Pakistan’s geo-political location advantage to become an economic hub of the Central, South and West Asian countries to be part of global production networks (GPNs) and global value chains (GVCs).
She also highlighted that this is the right time for Pakistan to develop SEZs properly to transform the economy into a dynamic, vibrant, and integrated production system and market with strong regional and global linkages and ADB stands ready to help.
Principal Economist ADB, Mr. Guntur Sugiyarto presented the SEZs development framework for Pakistan, which has been prepared based on global best practice, Chinese experience and local knowledge ensure that the framework is really relevant for Pakistan too.
He also highlighted that Pakistan must develop evidence based SEZs based on this framework given the high failure globally including 77% in China.