Bhalwal estate to be designated special zone

Chinese, overseas Pakistani investors give high ratings to the estate

LAHORE: The Bhalwal Industrial Estate has become a major attraction for foreign investors due to its strategic location on the Lahore-Islamabad Motorway, boasted Punjab Industrial Estates Development and Management Company (PIEDMC) Chairman Rizwan Khalid Butt while talking to a group of overseas investors at his office.

Chinese and overseas Pakistani investors were giving high ratings to the Bhalwal estate for making investments because of its proximity to the motorway, he told the delegation.



“The estate is situated in the middle of Lahore-Islamabad Motorway, therefore, local and foreign investors are showing massive interest,” Butt said, adding two different investors from the US and the UAE were planning to set up a plastic factory and a pharmaceutical unit in the near future.

Motorways in the country are the main economic arteries and most industrial cities are located close to these arteries in Punjab due to their logistical benefits.

Butt told potential investors that the Board of Investment (BoI) was set to declare the Bhalwal Industrial Estate a special economic zone, which would enable them to take tax and other benefits by setting up manufacturing units there.

He said PIEDMC was in the process of inviting bids for setting up an electrical grid station at the estate to ensure uninterrupted power supply. He voiced hope that the two steps would attract more investors in the future.



So far, 100 industrial plots have been sold in the Bhalwal estate. The selling spree will get a boost when repair work on a road linking the site with Salim Interchange (on the motorway) is completed.

He said 90% of development work had been completed and the remaining 10% would be finished off in two months.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 1^st, 2017.

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