& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

Biggest EPZ in limbo

Denied licence for 3 years for no express reason

SHARIER KHAN
The government without any express reason has refrained for the last three years from licensing the country's biggest and private Korean Export Processing Zone (KEPZ) to operate, despite the fact that the Korean entrepreneurs have already invested about Tk 100 crore to develop it.
Sources at the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), which deals with private EPZ, said the government in 1999 handed over 2,492 acres of land on the Karnaphuli river in Chittagong to KEPZ led by Korean company Youngone. At the same time, a gazette notification was made on the zone.
Other than the licence, KEPZ has no formality left to kick-start its
operation anytime.
Sources said, unofficially, KEPZ has become a victim of politicisation. After coming to office in October 2001, the BNP-led four-party alliance started to view KEPZ as a 'political beneficiary' of the previous government of Awami League.
Interestingly, the process of setting up KEPZ started back in 1995, during the previous BNP regime.
Since early 2002, the PMO has formed several committees to look into some alleged irregularities in KEPZ and the Private EPZ Act framed during the AL government. The first committee verbally asked the KEPZ management why it needed such a huge area of 2,492 acres and hinted that it could do
away with 500 acres.
In the end, in November 2003, a high-powered committee led by the principal secretary to the prime minister adjudged that there was no need to change the act and said, "in the interest of national image and foreign investment," KEPZ should be allowed to function without any delay.
Ever since, the government has kept mum on the issue, sources said. KEPZ on the other hand kept on writing to the PMO on a monthly basis requesting permission to operate.
Sources said, in recent times, a son of a powerful minister approached the KEPZ management saying he could fix all the troubles for a 'fee' of three million dollars.
To the hilly KEPZ site, where Youngone has constructed roads and structures since 1999 after paying the government Tk 64 crore for the land, goons linked to a ruling party lawmaker visit from time to time asking for payoffs, the sources said. The same MP on several occasions expressed grievance against the KEPZ management for not contracting out part of the development work launched in 2001 to him.
"The fate of KEPZ now in limbo also exemplifies how the government treats foreign investors," quips a PMO source, adding, "The government seems so concerned about the country's image while dealing with
SEE PAGE 11 COL 4 FROM PAGE 1
other matters. But here is an instance where it is turning a blind eye to spoilage of the same."
Consequently, Youngone has been unable to bring in the promised investment, says KEPZ Chairman ANM Eusuf: "In absence of a licence, we cannot market the EPZ investment prospects. In the past, more than 20 Chinese investors came and held a meeting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They received promises, but nothing happened ever since."
Other than the Chinese, a US chemical company and some Korean companies visited the site informally and expressed their interests.
As the stagnation affected Youngone's expansion, it diverted around $40 million investment to Vietnam, China and India in the last three years. Youngone started its operations in Bangladesh back in 1978 and has grown into a massive company.
KEPZ: FACT FILE
KEPZ, by its size and investment profile, stands out from all other EPZs in the country. It plans to install 500 industrial units with an investment of one billion US dollars. KEPZ sources said the plan includes setting up a whole range of garment and textiles units plus electronics, software, scientific and optical tools, machine tools, automotive parts and other units. Youngone will invest 200 million dollars separately to build up its infrastructure.
In contrast, the government-run five EPZs have only 203 units with a total investment of 748 million dollars.
The first EPZ set up in Chittagong in 1983 has 119 industrial units on a 453-acre site. The Dhaka EPZ established in 1993 has 72 units on 355 acres. The other three EPZs launched after 2001 have but a few units -- the 191-acre Mongla EPZ has five units, the 258-acre Comilla EPZ six units and the 233-acre Syedpur EPZ just one unit.
Again, Youngone alone accounts for 25 percent of the investment in the five government EPZs, with 16 units employing more than 30,000 people and exporting goods worth over 220 million dollars a year.
The idea of KEPZ was conceived during a visit of Khaleda Zia, the then prime minister of the BNP government, to South Korea in 1995.
After AL came to power in 1996, Youngone applied for 2,700 acres of land on the Karnaphuli river opposite to Chittagong airport in a hilly location, and the land ministry allotted it 2,526 acres in November that year. Of that, about 1,700 acres belong to the government and the rest to private citizens.
Also in 1996, KEPZ was registered as a company, and side by side the government approved the Private EPZ Act.
In August 1999, the deputy commissioner (DC) of Chittagong acquired 2,492 acres of land for KEPZ and Youngone consented to leave out the rest of the allotted land, which belonged to graveyards, religious establishments and some other authorities.
Although the administration had promised to evict the squatters on the site, in many cases, Youngone had to do it on its own. Even now, there is a cluster village with about 44 families who have received compensation for their land but have not moved out. The 400-staff-strong KEPZ is now dealing with them.
The prime minister heads a board of governors which deals with the private EPZ licensing process under the Private EPZ Act. This board so far held 11 meetings, with three of them during the present government's tenure. The last meeting was held in April 2003.
The board held its first meeting after the change of power in January 2002 and formed a committee with Agriculture Minister MK Anwar to
examine why KEPZ was given such a large area as 2,500 acres. This committee held half a dozen meetings without any representation of KEPZ, except one, where it invited KEPZ and asked its chairman why the zone needed so much land.
The KEPZ chair explained that more than 60 percent of the site consisted of hills and ditches and only 40 percent would be used for industrial establishments. None of the other EPZs -- in Chittagong and Dhaka -- are a model for KEPZ nor have the same strategic placement, he pointed out.
The KEPZ chair said: Both CEPZ and DEPZ are established on plain land and well connected to the cities. Whereas KEPZ is located on the environmentally sensitive bank of Karnaphuli river. While CEPZ and DEPZ have industrial units only, KEPZ lays out an ideal plan of having dorms, recreational facilities like a golf course, school, training centres, convention centres, guest house, etc. Unlike other EPZs, it will accommodate 100,000 people.
KEPZ also argued that the government had not put any cap on how big it could be.
After that meeting, which had ended inconclusively, the MK Anwar Committee formed a secretary-level committee in September 2002. On the basis of this committee's report, the Anwar Committee submitted its recommendations to the board of governors in March 2003. These recommendations again led to forming of two more committees through a meeting of the board in April 2003.
One of these latest committees headed by a law ministry joint secretary was assigned to formulate regulations under the Private EPZ Act, the task it completed in a few months.
The second committee led by the principal secretary to the prime minister were to recommend amendment to the Private EPZ Act and suggest what to do about KEPZ as per MK Anwar Committee's recommendations.
The principal secretary's committee in November 2003 reported that there was no need to amend the act and said licence to operate should be issued to KEPZ immediately without additional condition "in the interest of national image and foreign investment."
Since then the issue has remained mysteriously stalled.