The second meeting of the Board of Approvals of the Special Economic Zones was held Tuesday under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister, Raja Parvez Ashraf.

The BoI officials, under the chairmanship of Finance Minister/ Chairman BoI, Senator Saleem H. Mandviwalla, presented some of the agenda points, which were discussed in the meeting. The agenda points of the meeting were the implementation status of the decisions taken in the 1st meeting of BOA, the delegation of powers to approvals committee, the appointment of four members for each SEZ Authority (two by BOA and two by the concerned Chief Minister), the SEZ Authority for Islamabad Capital Territory, the adoption of SEZ draft rules, 2013 etc.

All of the above mentioned agenda points were approved by the Prime Minister. The Special Economic Zones Authorities (SEZA) had already been notified by the provinces of Punjab, Sindh, KPK, Balochistan and Gilgit Baltistan.The SEZ rules were finalised after the due consultations with all the stakeholders i.e. the provinces, State Bank of Pakistan etc.

The Board of Investment accommodated all the reservations highlighted by the provinces. After mutual consensus and deliberation the draft SEZ Rules were finalized and the same has been approved by the Prime Minister of Pakistan in the Board of Approvals meeting held today.The appointment of four members for each SEZ Authority was also finalised and the members were selected by mutual consensus of all the stakeholders present in the meeting.