Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Establishment of Peshawar Expo Centre (PEC) has become a distant dream for exporters, as the Ministry of Commerce could not initiate the much-anticipated project despite announcing its commencement in August last year.

The government included this project in the current fiscal year once again and allocated Rs 300 million for this project. However, the ministry could not release the money from the Central Development Working Party (CDWP) in the first quarter of 2016-17.

Sources told Daily Times that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government had provided 40 acres of land for construction of the expo centre, but no progress was made in this regard. The commerce minister on various occasions announced initiation of the project but on the other hand, no concrete steps were taken to start this project and it seemed that the PEC project has been shelved.

An exporter from KP told this scribe that the project would enable the KP exporters showcase their products to the world, especially the Central Asian states.

This project would also generate opportunities of employment and business for the people of the province, he added. In case no interest was taken with regards to completion of this project, it would cause colossal loss to national exchequer, the exporter observed.

It is pertinent to mention that CDWP had approved this Rs 2.5 billion project on August 25, 2015, and allocated Rs 500 million for the purpose in Budget 2015-16, but the project was ignored due to negligence of the authorities concerned.

The government had promised to provide modern facilities to PEC so that international investors could be attracted to make investment in KP and exhibition could be held therein. Non-initiation of construction work on PEC has raised grave concerns among the business community of the province.

The business community was of the view that Pakistan’s export has been decreasing since 2014 and if government sets up this expo centre soon, it would benefit not only benefit KP, but would also help increase the export revenue of the country.