LAHORE: PowerChina, the Chinese state-owned group building the Diamer-Bhasha dam, is exploring investment in energy projects in Punjab’s special economic zones, Industries Minister Chaudhry Shafay Hussain said after meeting a company delegation in Lahore on Wednesday.
Yao Chen Yang, the group’s director for South Asia, told the minister at PSIC House on Davis Road that PowerChina had invested in several sectors of Pakistan’s economy and was keen to enter Punjab’s zones. The company is the lead partner, with the Frontier Works Organisation, in the main civil works contract for Diamer-Bhasha, awarded in 2020.
Hussain invited the group to consider small hydropower plants on Punjab’s canals, which the provincial government is planning, and said electric vehicles and energy offered wide openings for investors.
He told the delegation that investors in the zones are entitled to a 10-year income tax exemption and a one-time duty-free import of machinery, and that foreign investment enjoys full protection in Punjab.
Those incentives are under pressure. Under its current programme, the International Monetary Fund has pushed Pakistan to curb the power of investment boards and zone authorities to grant tax breaks, though the government has said the reforms apply to future zones and that existing ones remain protected. The minister did not say which zone PowerChina might enter.
Punjab’s zones have become the province’s main draw for factory investment, and Hussain said Chinese and other foreign firms had already invested billions of dollars there. The PIEDMC chairman Azam Shehzad and officials of the Punjab Board of Investment and Trade attended, along with the company’s local partner, Muhammad Arsala Khan of KMAK Group.
Leave a Reply