Sialkot Model- What makes the city so successful? and can rest of Pakistan learn from it

[Maula Jatt]

Sialkot is among the few cities of Pakistan with HDI levels higher than 0.8
Pakistan's GDP per Capita is probably around 1500, 1600 something

While Sialkots GDP per Capita is 18,500, for comparison turkeys per Capita is half of that and it's multiple times higher than Pakistan's

It's amongst the least inequal cities of Pakistan cause fundamentally it's built on export oriented SME's

It's the only city of Pakistan with it's own private international airport (that means it's owned by buisness chamber of Sialkot not government of Punjab or Pakistan)

In 1985 city's buisnessmen built a dry Port on thier without any government funding, they pave thier roads on their own, have an international airline owned by Sialkots chamber of commerce

A lot of people on PDF have racism issues, every issue has to be seen through ethnic or cultural (pathetic habit of this forum) - people of Sialkot are the same as rest of northern and Central Punjab

City of Sialkot was left devastated after the partition, it's economic heartland/ backbone was Jammu and Kashmir now LOC stands between J&K and Sialkot, it's right next to Indian border along the loc, far away from ports of Karachi or coast's of Balochistan yet despite being a relatively small city contributes to more than 10% of our exports

It's economic model is based off- of export oriented SME's
Can we make cities like Sialkot, with a similar economic model
spread out along our coastlines?

@Meengla @Bleek @hydrabadi_arab @M. Sarmad

 

[nahtanbob]

Doesn't Faisalabad do equally well ? Sorry if I confused names

 

[epebble]

This is an article on how resilience is possible in spite of being drowned by mediocrity.

Pakistani Nation’s Resilience In The Face Of Crisis Is Truly Astonishing​

Pakistani Nation's Resilience In The Face Of Crisis Is Truly Astonishing

With multiple crises that threaten to unravel the country, the people in Pakistan continue living as if nothing is out of place

www.thefridaytimes.com

 

[Zhukov]

Doesn't Faisalabad do equally well ? Sorry if I confused names

No not even close. Faisalabad is a massive city. Its infrastructure and City planning is beyond hope and totall mess.
It has a lot of industry but sialkot is in a league of its own. If you compare per capita productivity of both cities its hell different.
Also there is a big qualitative difference between two cities, that is behavior of business community. Our Faisalabad business community cannot unite on anything. Sialkot can build an Airport and airline by their own initiative.
Meanwhile in Industrial heartland of Faisalabad they cannot even build proper roads in front of there factories by pooling funds together. Every industrial zone have harrapa era roads.

 

[N.Siddiqui]

Sialkot is among the few cities of Pakistan with HDI levels higher than 0.8
Pakistan's GDP per Capita is probably around 1500, 1600 something

While Sialkots GDP per Capita is 18,500, for comparison turkeys per Capita is half of that and it's multiple times higher than Pakistan's

It's amongst the least inequal cities of Pakistan cause fundamentally it's built on export oriented SME's

It's the only city of Pakistan with it's own private international airport (that means it's owned by buisness chamber of Sialkot not government of Punjab or Pakistan)

In 1985 city's buisnessmen built a dry Port on thier without any government funding, they pave thier roads on their own, have an international airline owned by Sialkots chamber of commerce

A lot of people on PDF have racism issues, every issue has to be seen through ethnic or cultural (pathetic habit of this forum) - people of Sialkot are the same as rest of northern and Central Punjab

City of Sialkot was left devastated after the partition, it's economic heartland/ backbone was Jammu and Kashmir now LOC stands between J&K and Sialkot, it's right next to Indian border along the loc, far away from ports of Karachi or coast's of Balochistan yet despite being a relatively small city contributes to more than 10% of our exports

It's economic model is based off- of export oriented SME's
Can we make cities like Sialkot, with a similar economic model
spread out along our coastlines?

@Meengla @Bleek @hydrabadi_arab @M. Sarmad

The Sialkot, Wazirabad and Gujranwala industrial triangle is famous.

Sialkot per capita income is much higher as the industries are exprt oriented with sports goods, the cricket kit to bat and balls, the famous footballs, was reading about 70% of worlds footballs are produced in Sialkot city.

And add to it the surgical, medical equipment, again export oriented, if the branding and marketing are done in a better way it can fetch much more money.

 

[N.Siddiqui]

No not even close. Faisalabad is a massive city. Its infrastructure and City planning is beyond hope and totall mess.
It has a lot of industry but sialkot is in a league of its own. If you compare per capita productivity of both cities its hell different.
Also there is a big qualitative difference between two cities, that is behavior of business community. Our Faisalabad business community cannot unite on anything. Sialkot can build an Airport and airline by their own initiative.
Meanwhile in Industrial heartland of Faisalabad they cannot even build proper roads in front of there factories by pooling funds together. Every industrial zone have harrapa era roads.

Sialkot population is around 7 lacs, Faisalabad could be touching 5-6 million so about 9/10 times bigger.

But Faisalabad was called the Manchester of Pakistan for its large scale Textile sector, now its not in good shape, earlier there were huge orders and a shortage of manpower. Textile sector contribution is about 60% of Pak exports or around 19 billion USD last year, but it will get in shape soon, hopefully.

So this is significant. Gujranwala have big kitchen cooking ware, electric fans, geysers, gas ovens and stoves other industries. Bike vendor industries and lots more.

Wazirabad (Urdu/Punjabi: وزِيرآباد) is a city in Punjab, Pakistan. It is the capital of Wazirabad District. Famous for its cutlery products, it is known as the city of cutlery and is also quite famous for its foods.

 

[Maula Jatt]

The Sialkot, Wazirabad and Gujranwala industrial triangle is famous.

Sialkot per capita income is much higher as the industries are exprt oriented with sports goods, the cricket kit to bat and balls, the famous footballs, was reading about 70% of worlds footballs are produced in Sialkot city.

And add to it the surgical, medical equipment, again export oriented, if the branding and marketing are done in a better way it can fetch much more money.

Gujrat, Faisalabad other industrial cities in the same general vicinity

Unfortunately provincial government never focused on our industrial cities - whatever they're doing, they're doing on thier own, insptite of government not because of it - in Faisalabad we saw how PMLn's anti export policies devastated the city , it left thousands of factory workers unemployed

PTI spent money on SP and PMLN on Lahore, these cities are operating cause of it's resilient people and buisness cammunity

Federal government's historically anti export policies (dar) actively hinders the economic progress of these cities despite the government policies they're still going strong

Kudos to the buisness cammunity and laanat on both provincial and federal government

 

[N.Siddiqui]

Gujrat, Faisalabad other industrial cities in the same general vicinity

Unfortunately provincial government never focused on our industrial cities - whatever they're doing, they're doing on thier own, insptite of government not because of it - in Faisalabad we saw how PMLn's anti export policies devastated the city , it left thousands of factory workers unemployed

PTI spent money on SP and PMLN on Lahore, these cities are operating cause of it's resilient people and buisness cammunity

Federal government's historically anti export policies actively hinders the economic progress of these cities despite the government policies they're still going strong

Kudos to the buisness cammunity and laanat on both provincial and federal government

Some related threads, the point is we need to appreciate the good positive things and get out of the despondency and hopelessness situation as that would be killing.

So a good positive thread started by you, much needed.

Sialkot manufacture 70% of world's Football-An Emerging Story

Sialkot - An Emerging Story

defence.pk

Review: AIR SIAL A320 - PAKISTAN'S NEW SUPER AIRLINE? Josh Cahill

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Its infrastructure and City planning is beyond hope and totall mess.

If you Google earth/map it and see the town planning, everything looks in grid and well planned, specially the samll houses of 5-4 marla or less in lacs of numbers means there are ample low cost housing and there are few Katchi Abadis, Slums.

Low cost affordable housing makes a city, town slum free or with less of it.

 

[nahtanbob]

No not even close. Faisalabad is a massive city. Its infrastructure and City planning is beyond hope and totall mess.
It has a lot of industry but sialkot is in a league of its own. If you compare per capita productivity of both cities its hell different.
Also there is a big qualitative difference between two cities, that is behavior of business community. Our Faisalabad business community cannot unite on anything. Sialkot can build an Airport and airline by their own initiative.
Meanwhile in Industrial heartland of Faisalabad they cannot even build proper roads in front of there factories by pooling funds together. Every industrial zone have harrapa era roads.

Maybe confused Sialkot for Faisalabad

 

[Zhukov]

Some related threads, the point is we need to appreciate the good positive things and get out of the despondency and hopelessness situation as that would be killing.

So a good positive thread started by you, much needed.

Sialkot manufacture 70% of world's Football-An Emerging Story

Sialkot - An Emerging Story

defence.pk

Review: AIR SIAL A320 - PAKISTAN'S NEW SUPER AIRLINE? Josh Cahill

KARACHI Review: AIR SIAL A320 - PAKISTAN'S NEW SUPER AIRLINE?

defence.pk

If you Google earth/map it and see the town planning, everything looks in grid and well planned, specially the samll houses of 5-4 marla or less in lacs of numbers means there are ample low cost housing and there are few Katchi Abadis, Slums.

Low cost affordable housing makes a city, town slum free or with less of it.

I am from faisalabad bro. Native born bred educated saw its rise in early 2000s and decline in 2010s by my own eyes.
Faisalabad has a lot of activity and industry thats the only saving grace.
Rest the city is total mess now

 

[Muhammad Saftain Anjum]

I am from faisalabad bro

Problem with Faisalabad is its rising population
Faisalabad is the first destination for education,work and health facilities for all the people in south Punjab.
Even though Multan is quite a big city and has the capacity to become a centre of education and health facilities for all South punjabians still a south Punjabian will come to Faisalabad.
And then you will find a common rhetoric among them that Punjabis are selfish people even though their huge influx in central Punjab has highly weakened the social bonding of Punjabis.
Our professors of south Punjab origin have absurd Urdu ascent,they speak too fast .
We usually say about them: "a khap bhoti ponde ne te kam kat karde ne"

Influx of Pushtoons is new trend but Peshawaris usually adopt Punjabi if they settle here and have Punjabi ascent exactly like us (don't destort it)
Afghans are like alliens in our society.

Moreover: people like my family from surrounding regions of Faisalabad like Jaranwala also migrate to Faisalabad for education.
But this problem can be solved by cheap and efficient transport system.Govt. launched a bus service between Faisalabad and Jaranwala two years ago but was shut down in few months under the pressure of transport mafia .
Jaranwala if made District can hold huge population from surrounding thus can stop the influx of Punjabis into Faisalabad as Jaranwala itself can become a moderate industrial base for it's surrounding regions like awagat,Shahkot and will definitely uplift the agricultural output of its villages.Demand is there for at least a decade now.PTI has promised to make Jaranwala a district.Let's see if they fullfill their promise after coming to power.

 

[SoulSpokesman]

The Sialkot model is very much known and appreciated in India too. Hopefully some progressive state governments will try to implement the same on a large scale here. Bit like Korea did with Ayub's economic programme.

Regards

 

[Erieye]

We need the Sialkot Business community to hold some sort of business workshop in different cities where they can give some insight on how they made this work, but it's clear they are quite tight-knitted and are well organised so they can collectively get things done.

More business chambers need to be opened in other cities where they can connect and cooperate more freely, work together for the prosperity of the city.

Also I'm not 100% sure but ive heard a lot of the sialkot business men are retired soldiers, hence a bit more disciplined and work well together.

 

[Maula Jatt]

We need the Sialkot Business community to hold some sort of business workshop in different cities where they can give some insight on how they made this work, but it's clear they are quite tight-knitted and are well organised so they can collectively get things done.

More business chambers need to be opened in other cities where they can connect and cooperate more freely, work together for the prosperity of the city.

Also I'm not 100% sure but ive heard a lot of the sialkot business men are retired soldiers, hence a bit more disciplined and work well together.

Complete BS, propoganda probably

 

[Erieye]

Complete BS, propoganda probably

Yeah wouldn't really make sense because you'd see the same happen in other cities. I guess the business community in Sialkot is just more organised and co-operative, they work together well for the greater interests of the city.