‘Pakistan’s biggest industrial estates to be set up in Layyah, Muzaffargarh’

[B.K.N]

Drip irrigation, i visited a few farms there. Alot of people are growing oranges/citrus fruits there.

Thal isnt barren, a little water and levelling of land is all that is needed.

Chana is grown here and wheat and sheeps goats camels rakhtay Hain there are lot of towns from Khushab to Layyah in entire thal

 

[DESERT FIGHTER]

Chana is grown here and wheat and sheeps goats camels rakhtay Hain there are lot of towns from Khushab to Layyah in entire thal

Chana isnt grown in thal, chowk choubara etc area. I visit the place once in a while, have friends there, at Choubara. If you are from there, you probably know the Magsis.

 

[The Accountant]

Oh, it makes more sense now. I was thinking a post had been deleted or something maybe.

I think Punjab is perfectly suitable for manufacturing though. Think about this - if you are a manufacturer and you setup in Karachi, is it because you expect to sell only to Karachi? Of course not. You hope to use the ports to export and the road/rail networks to send goods across Pakistan. Those same networks can be used to send goods to Karachi for sale and for use of the ports.

Punjab does have a diverse population, but it's hardly rural. Look at this table of 100 the most populous cities in Pakistan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_populous_cities_in_Pakistan

58 of them are Punjab. You don't need to be Karachi to be suitable for manufacturing. I live in the UK, the city of Derby has about 250,000 residents. It is home to Toyota, Bombardier and Rolls Royce. The city of Sunderlad has about 270,000 residents, it's home to Nissan and Nike.
Chesterfield is a small town with a population of 100,000 people. It's got more manufacturing jobs that nearby Derby and Sheffield. It's well connected, people can commute to it, land is cheap.

Most factories will employees in the thousands rather than the tens of thousands. You can't set one up in a pind, but near most cities.

Agreed, but as a business professional I will always prefer Karachi over others (assuming similar security and infrastructure status) due to following reason.

1. Getting skilled labor is the toughest of the job. For example, I have hand stitching highly specialized bridal units both in Karachi and Lahore, but Lahore workforce is atleast 30% more costly than Karachi with similar expertise.

2. Availability of skilled labor is abundant in Karachi as compared to any other city.

3. Cities of Punjab are populous but are they concentrated and consumption oriented? For example we have one area manager for Sindh who is looking 8 sales outlets in Karachi and one in Hyderabad whereas we have three area managers for Punjab and still it involved alot of travelling in Punjab.

4. For a new business my prime target is to quickly achieve break-even which is can be achieved much easier in Karachi then in other city of Pakistan after which I can go for expansion.

Anyways, these are all subjective things and are based on one own judgement. My comment on this thread was targeted in incompetency of Sindh Government and congratulations to Punjab government.

On a personal node I believe it is always better for a country to have distributed manufacturing just like Europe and Germany where there are small cities having big organizations. However, this cannot be done in Pakistan even in medium as we do not have skilled work force other than top 10 cities. and even in top 10 cities only KLI resources are mature enough to turn organizations into corporations whereas in smaller cities the organization are mostly run by owners and failed to get bigger than a certain size controllable by individuals or family business.

Sad but this is reality of our businesses.

 

[B.K.N]

Chana isnt grown in thal, chowk choubara etc area. I visit the place once in a while, have friends there, at Choubara. If you are from there, you probably know the Magsis.

Thal starts from Khushab and ends in Layyah Muzaffargarh
There is a large Baloch population in these areas Bhakkar Layyah

 

[313ghazi]

Agreed, but as a business professional I will always prefer Karachi over others (assuming similar security and infrastructure status) due to following reason.

1. Getting skilled labor is the toughest of the job. For example, I have hand stitching highly specialized bridal units both in Karachi and Lahore, but Lahore workforce is atleast 30% more costly than Karachi with similar expertise.

2. Availability of skilled labor is abundant in Karachi as compared to any other city.

3. Cities of Punjab are populous but are they concentrated and consumption oriented? For example we have one area manager for Sindh who is looking 8 sales outlets in Karachi and one in Hyderabad whereas we have three area managers for Punjab and still it involved alot of travelling in Punjab.

4. For a new business my prime target is to quickly achieve break-even which is can be achieved much easier in Karachi then in other city of Pakistan after which I can go for expansion.

Anyways, these are all subjective things and are based on one own judgement. My comment on this thread was targeted in incompetency of Sindh Government and congratulations to Punjab government.

On a personal node I believe it is always better for a country to have distributed manufacturing just like Europe and Germany where there are small cities having big organizations. However, this cannot be done in Pakistan even in medium as we do not have skilled work force other than top 10 cities. and even in top 10 cities only KLI resources are mature enough to turn organizations into corporations whereas in smaller cities the organization are mostly run by owners and failed to get bigger than a certain size controllable by individuals or family business.

Sad but this is reality of our businesses.

Really good point about skilled labour. How do you think this can be overcome? Training for labour? Basic health and safety, how to operate forklifts?

 

[DESERT FIGHTER]

Thal starts from Khushab and ends in Layyah Muzaffargarh
There is a large Baloch population in these areas Bhakkar Layyah

Layyah itself is like 30 km from choubara and unlike that region layah is pretty green.

Same goes for bhakkhar.

 

[B.K.N]

Layyah itself is like 30 km from choubara and unlike that region layah is pretty green.
Same goes for bhakkhar.

Areas close to Indus river are like any other agricultural area of Punjab but those away from river are desert
In most of the areas only chana or wheat is grown drip irrigation is modern farming

Agreed, but as a business professional I will always prefer Karachi over others

Waisay yeh industries produce Kya karain gi

 

[DESERT FIGHTER]

Areas close to Indus river are like any other agricultural area of Punjab but those away from river are desert
In most of the areas only chana or wheat is grown drip irrigation is modern farming

Waisay yeh industries produce Kya karain gi

I lived in thal for a few days.

Meh the sand storms..

No electricity, no running water. And yet people are surviving smack in the middle of a desert and growing wheat, chana, fodder etc and even fish farms.

The people i saw were actually reclaiming desert land.

 

[The Accountant]

Areas close to Indus river are like any other agricultural area of Punjab but those away from river are desert
In most of the areas only chana or wheat is grown drip irrigation is modern farming

Waisay yeh industries produce Kya karain gi

Apparently these are not some specialized industry so it will be a general industrial zones providing benefits and tax holidays for new investments.

Most likely we will see low level and low margin industrial production of textile, tiles and other labor intensive industries

 

[RoadRunner401]

Really good point about skilled labour. How do you think this can be overcome? Training for labour? Basic health and safety, how to operate forklifts?

People in Punjab have just discovered fire give them time and they will discover to walk about 2 feet instead of four right now.

PITB: Pakistan Information Technology Board (PITB) entrepreneurship wing is holding a two days International IT Conference at Lahore on November 11 to 12 to showcase work of 400 commercially successful and viable Startups, 40-50 successful foreign corporate and media persons including 3000 IT companies.

PBIT CEO briefed the meeting about the Chinese proposal to construct a High-Tech Industrial Park in Lahore which will cover an area of 10 Sq. kilometers (2471 Acres). It will be divided in six units including Research and Development Base, Innovation Entrepreneurship Park, Modern Industrial Park, Modern Commerce and Trade Exhibition and Transaction Park, Modern Logistics Park, Supporting Service Park and proposed corporate structure.

 

[Kabira]

First of all it was a response to an statement where an other guy was claiming that Punjab is suitable for manufacturing due to 50% of Pakistan population is in Punjab. So I explained him that population of Punjab is disbursed and is skewed towards lower incoem people whereas in Karachi population is concentrated in dense area and skewed towards middle class consumption oriented people.

In second part of my post I am cursing Government of Sindh. Karachi is the most ideal place for manufacturing. Believe, me we are running manufacturing places in multiple cities but the quality of cheap skilled labor we get in Karachi is unparallel.

Not really. Rest of Sindh should be more suitable then Karachi now. But thats where PPP have failed over the decades.

One of most important aspect is land prices, pretty sure land in Karachi will cost many times more then middle of Layyah. Thats why no one setting up SEZ in Lahore.

Karachi should attract high end investment only like in IT parks. Cheap labour is curse for Karachi with 50% or more of population now living in katchi abadis. It has resulted in overpopulation .

If PTI can build these SEZ in south punjab and at the same time attract investment then it will be huge.

People in Punjab have just discovered fire give them time and they will discover to walk about 2 feet instead of four right now.

PITB: Pakistan Information Technology Board (PITB) entrepreneurship wing is holding a two days International IT Conference at Lahore on November 11 to 12 to showcase work of 400 commercially successful and viable Startups, 40-50 successful foreign corporate and media persons including 3000 IT companies.

PBIT CEO briefed the meeting about the Chinese proposal to construct a High-Tech Industrial Park in Lahore which will cover an area of 10 Sq. kilometers (2471 Acres). It will be divided in six units including Research and Development Base, Innovation Entrepreneurship Park, Modern Industrial Park, Modern Commerce and Trade Exhibition and Transaction Park, Modern Logistics Park, Supporting Service Park and proposed corporate structure.

Yep thats what I was talking about. I only hear about IT parks coming up in Pindi/ISB and Lahore. For rest industrialists are moving out.

 

[The Accountant]

Not really. Rest of Sindh should be more suitable then Karachi now. But thats where PPP have failed over the decades.

One of most important aspect is land prices, pretty sure land in Karachi will cost many times more then middle of Layyah. Thats why no one setting up SEZ in Lahore.

Karachi should attract high end investment only like in IT parks. Cheap labour is curse for Karachi with 50% or more of population now living in katchi abadis. It has resulted in overpopulation .

If PTI can build these SEZ in south punjab and at the same time attract investment then it will be huge.

Kindly read my next post, from planning point of view I completely agree that investment should spread out over multiple cities but in case of Sindh there is no workforce and infrastructure so its useless.

 

[313ghazi]

People in Punjab have just discovered fire give them time and they will discover to walk about 2 feet instead of four right now.

PITB: Pakistan Information Technology Board (PITB) entrepreneurship wing is holding a two days International IT Conference at Lahore on November 11 to 12 to showcase work of 400 commercially successful and viable Startups, 40-50 successful foreign corporate and media persons including 3000 IT companies.

PBIT CEO briefed the meeting about the Chinese proposal to construct a High-Tech Industrial Park in Lahore which will cover an area of 10 Sq. kilometers (2471 Acres). It will be divided in six units including Research and Development Base, Innovation Entrepreneurship Park, Modern Industrial Park, Modern Commerce and Trade Exhibition and Transaction Park, Modern Logistics Park, Supporting Service Park and proposed corporate structure.

You should delete your first sentence. That mentality should have no place in the hearts and minds of anyone who calls themselves Pakistani.

 

[Kambojaric]

Good news. South Punjab should have industries as well especially as geographically it is closer to the harbors of Pakistan as compared to North Punjab.

 

[Syed1.]

Will be massive.... larger cities like Karachi and Lahore should move onto higher tech manufacturing that requires very, very skilled labour. While lower tech, cheap manufacturing should move to smaller cities and less populated areas.

South Punjab, Baluchistan and parts of Sindh have large tracts of unused barren land. The land will be very cheap there, so ideal for development of SEZs. If the provincial and federal governments can work together to bring utilities to these SEZs then they will be the real engine of our growth.