The Chairman of Port Qasim Authority (PQA), Rear Admiral (r) Syed Hasan Nasir Shah, stated that the country’s largest industrial zone would soon reclaim the 1,250 acres it granted to Textile City Ltd. on a 50-year lease in 2006.
According to the sources, the Chairman spoke at the opening of an international company’s Integrated Logistics Park in Port Qasim. He stated that the PQA had received cabinet approval to cancel the lease for the doomed project and reclaim ownership of the valuable real estate.
The project was originally conceived in 2004 as a designated industrial zone within PQA for textile exporters. However, it ran into some difficulties and was eventually abandoned. The PQA owns approximately 8,700 acres of industrial land. This large plot of land, however, was unusable.
He also stated that the PQA would sign a contract to construct an Rs. 5 billion combined effluent treatment facility within the next two months. This modern requirement was lacking in Pakistan’s largest industrial area, which had over 400 units.
He noted, “One major handicap that weÂ’ve faced over many, many years is the navigational channel,” while talking about the 49-kilometer-long passage that helps ships with a draught of 13 meters (the vertical distance between the waterline and the vessel’s bottom).
“There have been many complaints from stakeholders that we should go further. The deeper you go, the more ships with larger drafts can call and it will require a large investment,” he added.
However, the PQA was not financially sound a few years ago, the Chairman stated that it can now adequately fund the expansion.
The PQA has requested financing from its partners to capitalize on the “foreign trade situation.”
He further stated that if the negotiations are successful, deeper ships will be able to access the port in 18 months via a wider navigational channel. This is about the plan to widen the channel by 200 to 250 meters.