MoMA envisages plan to set up ‘garment city’ at Port Qasim

Business Recorder reported that the Ministry of Maritime Affairs is considering a public-private partnership model for a 400-acre garment city at Port Qasim in Karachi. Officials estimate the complex could create more than 138,000 jobs and annual exports near USD 2.2 billion once the first phase is complete. Federal Minister Muhammad Junaid Anwar Chaudhry chaired a Monday meeting on the proposal, saying the export-focused cluster would concentrate on high-value apparel and draw private capital.

Phase one spans 250 acres, with 35 percent set aside for roads, utilities and green spaces. The design features 32 industrial plots, each five acres, which could shrink to two or three acres to admit more manufacturers. Port Qasim Authority would supply the infrastructure, letting each unit draw as much as 400,000 gallons of water daily, 2MW of grid power and 23,100 pounds of industrial gas. Across the whole project, planned daily supplies total 13 million gallons of water, 64MW of grid electricity and 750,000 pounds of gas.

Artistic Milliners, a Pakistani textile and denim maker, is set to build a unit with investment above USD 18 million that combines vertical integration with green technologies. The scheme also adds a single-window facility for exporters, featuring faster processing, dedicated customs desks and transport corridors. The target is to raise garment shipments to roughly $8 per piece on average.