Pharma ingredient project begins next month

http://www.newagebd.com/2010/mar/06/busi.html#3

Pharma ingredient project begins next month
Bdnews24.com . Dhaka

The construction work of the proposed API industrial park is likely to begin in April, officials said on Friday.

‘Hopefully, the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, will inaugurate the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients project,’ ABM Khorshed Alam, additional secretary of the industries ministry told the news agency.

‘We’ll disburse the money needed for acquiring 200 acres of land in Bausia under Gazaria upazila in Munshiganj next week for the project,’ he added.

According to him, Tk 65 crore is needed for the land, while the total project cost is estimated at Tk 235 crore. ‘The cost was first set at Tk 213 crore, but was increased as price of land has gone up,’ project director ABM Musfiqur Rahman told the news agency.

Ministry officials met on Thursday to review the project’s progress and decided to begin the construction work immediately.

The project is being implemented by the Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation.

The project period has been extended by one year due to complication in land acquisition.

‘We’re expecting to complete the development by Dec 2011,’ Rahman said of the project, which first started in 2008.

The cost of the land will be recovered from the plot owners, who will have to pay 60 per cent of the total land cost during allotment. The remaining 40 per cent will be paid in instalment by the plot owners.

BSCIC will provide infrastructural facilities like roads, drainage, electricity, gas and fire-fighting arrangement to the entrepreneurs.

A joint group, consisting of officials from BSCIC and the ministry of environment, is currently working to acquire the latter’s approval, Rahman added.

The project, once completed, will cut import of pharmaceutical ingredients by 90 per cent, which will ultimately save a lot of foreign currency.