PESHAWAR - Managing Director of Small Industries Development Board (SIDB) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Syed Zafar Ali Shah Sunday said that the board was going to set up 14 new industrial estates in the province to attract local and foreign investment and generate employment opportunities for youth in the province.
He said that the new industrial estates included Peshawar II and Bannu II included Dargai extension, Swat, Swabi, Bara, Jamrud. Dir Lower, Bajaur and Kurram. The board has also planned the revival of the closed industrial units including Jehangira Ceramics, Agricultural Light Engineering Programme (ALEP) Mardan wherein the youth were used to get skill of agriculture sector instruments to increase agriculture production.
Similarly, Jehangira Ceramics was manufacturing quality crockery items and its products were having higher demand in the local market. The products manufactured in the unit were used in the Presidency. He said that the machinery of the unit is still laying inside the building of the factory. The board, he said, has planned its utilization. Furthermore, SIDB had a feature of manufacturing quality carpets.
The carpet unit working under the supervision of the board and besides producing quality carpets was also generating skilled manpower for the industry. Carpets manufactured in the unit were having high demand in both local and foreign markets and earning handsome receipts for the provincial government.
He said that the new industrial estate in Swat will be food processing specific. He said that fruits and vegetables produced in Swat will be processed in industrial units to preserve them for a long time for the use at local level and also for export purposes. MD SIDB said that the provincial government has also decided the re-activation of the Pak-German Woodworking Unit to impart skill to develop the local furniture cluster.
He said that the board has also planned the promotion of arms, Charsadda & Peshawar foot-ware, handicrafts and traditional shawl manufacturing cluster of Islampur, district Swat. He said that the board wanted to facilitate the stakeholders of the cluster through providing them soft loans.
 For this purpose, he said that the board is going to hire a consultant for the cluster to identify the issues faced by it and then prepare a formal feasibility report. The service of experts for other closed units is also being acquired.
 Syed Zafar Ali Shah said that currently 13 industrial estates are working under the auspices of the board out of which the industrial estates of Peshawar, Charsadda, Mardan, Abbottabad, Mansehra and D.I. Khan are fully operational while the industrial estates of Bannu, Karak and Kohat have 70 percent allocation. But, the owners of some industrial plots particularly in Charsadda, Karak, Bannu and Kohat have not installed their units.
 He said that the owners of the empty plots would be issued notices to begin construction work in their plots within a period of two weeks to establish industrial units on them, otherwise the allotment of their plots would stand cancelled.