Govt to set up another EPZ in Ctg

The new EPZ is likely to be set up on some 57.5 acres of land that belongs to Halishahar Central Storage Depot (CSD) -- the largest CSD in the country, under the Department of Food, Chittagong region, sources said.

Department of Food took the decision to sell out the silo along with all its 94 installations spreading over 57.5 acres of land at the city fringe area of Halishahar because of its poor utility. The silo, built in 1965 with a total storage capacity of 84 thousand metric tons of foodgrains, remained closed since 2002, they said.

The Ministry of Food has formed a four-member committee headed by Amzad Hossain, joint-secretary. The committee conducted a survey that suggested selling out the silo at an estimated cost of Tk 330 crore. Following the decision, the process is underway to sell out the silo land and installations to Bangladesh Export Processing Zone Authority, said Rafiqul Islam Majumdar, Chittagong Regional Controller of Food, who is also one of the members of the survey committee.

Majumdar said the silos and depots were indispensable when the country had to import and store remarkable quantity of foodgrains for different food for work programmes and for meeting the shortfall in local production. But at present the scenario is quite different with the country procuring all its rice locally and importing only some 2 lakh mts of wheat to be stored in these silos and depots.

He further said that the absence of the Halishahar CSD would not hamper storage of foodgrains as the department had around two hundred silos and Local Supply Deports (LSDs) including one lakh metric tons capacity Chittagong Silo and 54 metric tons capacity Dewanhat CSD under its Chittagong-Sylhet region. Brigadier General (Retd) M Zahid Hossain, Chairman of Bangladesh Export Processing Zones (BEPZA) also confirmed that the process of handing over Halishahar Silo to BEPZA was underway. While talking to BSS the BEPZA chairman said that a decision was made in principle for setting up the third EPZ in Chittagong on the Halishahar CSD land.

He said that on receipt of an evaluation report on the CSD from the department of food, BEPZA itself conducted a survey making assessment of the property. BEPZA executive body prepared a proposal and sent it to the Prime Minister's Office.

Brigadier Zahid expressed the hope that a final decision on setting up of the proposed EPZ and approval to handing over the Halishahar CSD property might be made in the next meeting of BEPZA Board of Governors with the Prime Minister in the chair.

A lot of investors are keen to set up industrial units here if building structures are available. Keeping this in mind BEPZA plans to renovate the existing installations of the CSD to make them usable, the chairman said.

However, only 35 of these installations out of 94 might be usable while the rest 59 have to be demolished for developing industrial plots on them, he observed.

The BEPZA chairman said that 100 industrial plots were being developed on CEPZ adjoining 74 acres of land handed over to BEPZA from closed Chittagong Steel Mill (CSM) Limited involving Tk 37.47 crore. It aimed at setting up a new EPZ considering the huge demand of EPZ in Chittagong having easy access to both the sea-port and air-port facilities.

After having the CSM land handing over in presence of the Prime Minister on February 22 this year, development of industrial plots on the land already marked a significant progress while a Project Concept Paper (PCP) for a new EPZ-proposed as Karnaphuli EPZ, was prepared and passed in the pre ECNEC meeting, said the BEPZA chairman.

With the passage of the PCP in the next ECNEC meeting plot allotment would start officially under a new and independent authority of Karnaphuli EPZ, he added.

Brigadier Zakir further said that the process was also underway to extend the area of the proposed Karnaphuli EPZ on the rest of the total 222 acres of CSM land to be handed over to BEPZA in phases. The installations -- mostly the residential buildings of closed CSM, would be renovated for renting them out to interested entrepreneurs for setting up industrial units, he said.