Dry port: AJK Chamber seeks swift construction

Project, approved 10 years ago, can help export Rs1b worth of goods.

MIRPUR: Azad Jammu and Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry has called for immediate start of construction work on the much-awaited dry port in the industrial city of Mirpur.

Pakistan government should give the go-ahead to the dry port, which had been approved over 10 years ago in August 2001, AJK Chamber President Dr Muhammad Akram Chaudhry told The Express Tribune in an interview here on Thursday.

Expressing concern over inordinate delay in the dry port construction, he said certain quarters sitting in Islamabad were allegedly creating hurdles in the way of the project while on the other hand several dry ports were functioning successfully in various parts of the country.

He expected export of Rs1 billion worth of goods through the dry port every year keeping in view investments made in different businesses by over 800,000 Kashmiri expatriates living in the United Kingdom.

Chaudhry recalled the decisions about setting up the dry port to facilitate investment, exports and imports and about establishing a separate grid station by the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) at Mirpur to ease the power shortage faced by industrial units.

“Foreign investment can flow into Pakistan in abundance if facilitated and matched with practical measures,” he stressed and said the overseas Kashmiri community was disappointed as they had planned to invest in AJK in the wake of the decision on setting up a dry port but the 10-year delay dashed all hopes.

About displacement of people due to the capacity enhancement of Mangla dam, Chaudhry said these people must be provided an enabling environment to carry out business activities and the dry port project could prove as a major facilitator.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 23^rd, 2011.