QUETTA: Off and on, there are frequent calls or a reiteration from the Government leaders and officials inviting significant investment in Balochistan claiming better opportunities as the province is rich with natural wealth.

It is a fact that the ground realities had barred the investors from coming to Balochistan for obvious reasons excluding a very short period when Balochistan Government opened up Hub region of investment in 1980s providing unlimited investment opportunities.

The credit goes to a non-Muslim Chief Secretary, Mr. S.R. Poonegar, and a proud son of the soil who enforced the idea of industrial development close to Karachi. He invented the idea and implemented it with full commitment to industrialize at least some parts of Balochistan.

Since Hub Industrial Area was an extension of Karachi, merely 12 miles from the main business centre of Karachi or merely six miles from SITE, one of the major industrial estates of the country. On the contrary, the new industrial area of Karachi was located more than 50 miles away on the Super Highway in Thano Bula Khan.

The incentives included very attractive tax holiday and tax relief and duty-free machinery import in the name of Balochistan for Karachi industrialists at a distance of only six miles from SITE.

It was considered a boon for the industrialists and factory owners to multiply their profit and wealth with no additional burden of tax and at the cost of Balochistan and its people.

The functionaries of the Federal Government were found encouraging or instigating some of the factory owners and industrialists not to pay the property tax and local tax to the Provincial Government for unknown reasons. For this they used the lever of the Federal Government, particularly a business friendly Prime Minister of Pakistan. The Federal Government officials unilaterally extended the tax holiday which included local taxes of the municipal body and the Property tax of the huge structure on which machinery was installed.

That was a special phase for the so-called industrial growth in area close to Karachi only while there were no such incentives for investors in remaining parts of Balochistan.

The handpicked Prime Minister of Pakistan, Mr. Shaukat Aziz, on one fine night, suddenly withdrew the tax holiday asking all the industrial units in Balochistan to pay taxes during the regime of Pervez Musharraf.

It had the devastating effects on the local economy and the industrial units started closing down, winding up production and packing up from Balochistan. At the end of the day, more than 300 industrial units were closed in Hub and Vindar region and its machinery shifted to the Punjab where better and more extensive incentives were given to the industrialists. It was the biggest reason for sudden industrial development of Punjab since late 1980s following government sponsored riots in Karachi.

Later on, it was proved that it was deliberate on the part of Shaukat Aziz withdrawing the incentives in Balochistan and extending the same to certain areas of Punjab boosting its pace of industrial development to a greater speed.

At the moment, the Balochistan Government had nothing to offer to the industrialists or the potential investors. The tax holiday is now confined to Gwadar—hundreds of kilometers away from Karachi—to attract national or international investment.

Barring the Chinese, no one is found interested in making investment even in Gwadar following the massive propaganda campaign by the Government leaders and the proponents of CPEC of which Gwadar deepwater port is claimed to be integral part of the grand project.

Interestingly, there is a ban on visit to Balochistan by foreigners, including the potential investors from any part of the world without obtaining permission from the security authorities. It is not in our knowledge that any of the international investors from the developed countries had ever visit Gwadar to make on the spot assessment for investment in any sector of the Provincial economy.

On the ground, there are no basic infrastructure in Gwadar and its surrounding for future industrial or commercial development. Presumably, it will be the Chinese who will first develop the basic infrastructure for development of Gwadar, the port, the industrial and commercial area of the future commercial capital of Balochistan.

Thus the potential investors should wait at least for one more decade for developing the infrastructure or it should be matching the one available in nearby Chah Bahar Port, another Mekran Coast Port in Iranian Balochistan where projects worth over 50 billion US dollars are being implemented with full speed.

It is interesting to observe that the developed countries of the world are not making any investment in Central Iran, base of the power of the Iranian Government. However, they are showing keen interests in making significant investment.

When the Japanese announced to build a steel plant with 2 million ton production annually, the whole world was surprised that the Japanese bought the required land and paid the payment on the spot on the same day during their first visit to the site in Chah Bahar Port Industrial zone.

Investors are from the developed countries, including Japan, South Korea, Italy, Germany, India and some other countries of Southern Europe. In one sector of metal mining, Japan and South Korea are establishing Steel Mills with a total production of 3.6 million tons a year.

One can judge the level of investment comparing it with the Pakistan Steel plant in Karachi with only hundred thousand ton capacity a year while the two plants will produce 3.6 million ton of finest quality steel for the world economy.

The main point is that Iran had provided an enabling climate for investment and enjoying the support of the broad masses of Iranian Balochistan where massive economic development is underway with complete peace and harmony.

In case of Pakistani Balochistan, the Government will have to provide a suitable environment for investment by overcoming all the difficulties and impediments in the way of economic development.

The Government will have to find a political or amicable solution to the on-going Baloch conflict so that the international investors should enjoy the confidence of the local people also. The assurances from the Government leaders and functionaries are not enough. Such assurances will not motivate the foreign capital to come Pakistan, barring the Chinese, precisely because of their strategic or commercial interests. It is early to predict how much the Chinese companies will invest in Balochistan with special reference to Gwadar Port and its industrial and free trade area.