Surgical City Sialkot project included in ADP: minister

LAHORE:Punjab Minister for Industry and Trade Aslam Iqbal has said that the project of Surgical City Sialkot has been included in Annual Development Programme (ADP). A multi-purpose testing lab at a cost of Rs2 billion will be established in Sialkot while the issues of Sialkot Export Processing Zone will be resolved in next two weeks and the federal government will be contacted to resolve the issue.

The minister was talking to a delegation of industrialists led by Special Assistant to the Prime Minister for Youth Affairs Usman Dar who called him here on Monday. The meeting was held at Civil Secretariat.

The minister said Rs500 million would be spent on providing infrastructure in the tannery zone Sialkot and about 500 tanneries located in the city would be shifted to this zone. He said an independent study was being carried out by the Punjab Infrastructure Development Agency and a final decision will be taken in the light of the study report. Mian Aslam Iqbal said all possible facilities are being provided to the industrialists on the directives of the chief minister. He said Sialkot's exports could be increased to $5 billion by activating the Export Processing Zone.

German companies: Consortium of German Companies has shown interest in investment in Punjab tourism sector. This development was disclosed in a meeting of representative of the Consortium in Pakistan who called on Adviser to Chief Minister on Tourism Asif Mehmood, here on Monday. Secretary Tourism and Archaeology Department (TAD) Capt (retd) Mushtaq Ahmed was also present during the meeting.

Shamoon Sadiq, representative for German investment companies Neoquell and CWF offered that both firms intended to build a college of tourism and other institutions at Harbanspura, Lahore. "Besides this we are also considering investment at Dharabhi Lake, Chakwal and a tourist spot at DG Khan", said the representative. The Adviser while welcoming the offer said that thanks to the vibrant policies introduced by Prime Minister, confidence of foreign investors has raised manifold. Managing Director of TDCP will kick off initial talk with the German Consortium, he said.

MoU signed: Punjab University’s Department of Space Science and National Engineering Services of Pakistan’s Water and Agricultural Division signed an MoU to achieve the goal of enhancing space-based geographic information system and satellite sensing applications, geospatial technologies and data development.

The agreement was signed at the PU Vice Chancellor’s office here on Monday. PU VC Prof Niaz Ahmed, Chairman Department of Space Science Prof Dr Syed Amer Mehmood, General Manger Water and Agriculture Division NESPAK Mansoor Ali, Director External Linkages Dr Sobia Khuram and others participated in the event. Both the parties would collaborate to improve the Geo-Spatial Database Development i.e. cadastre data and land-use development of Pakistan’s major cities, promote new technologies to achieve the maximum benefit of space applications in the field of satellite sensing and geographic information system for mapping the mega cities and developing the attribute data to facilitate various government departments for multipurpose analysis.