Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry has shown great concerns over the inordinate delay in completion of new Islamabad Airport at Fateh Jang and has appealed to the Prime Minister of Pakistan to intervene for its early completion.
 

Zafar Bakhtawari, President, ICCI said that the new airport project was initiated in 2007 and was to be completed by December 2011, but due to long delay, its cost has reportedly skyrocketed from Rs.35 billion to Rs.73 billion, which shows the level of inefficiency of project executors and a great drain on taxpayers’ money.
 

He said the airport in capital reflects the face of a country and plays a significant role in promoting or affecting its image. Therefore, timely completion of new airport in Islamabad was badly needed to project a positive image of Pakistan to outside visitors as well as to improve trade, exports and economic activities.
 

He said the economic impact of airports is increasing along with growing passenger and cargo traffic. However, the current Islamabad airport lacks modern day facilities and is insufficient to manage heavy load of cargo & passenger traffic due to which local and foreign businessmen have to face problems. Thus the early completion of new airport has assumed additional significance.
 

He said ICCI is striving for construction of an Industrial Estate near Chakri which is quite near to the new airport and its completion is expected to facilitate promoting industrial and investment activities in that area as potential industrialists always prefer to locate their industries near airports.
 

Zafar Bakhtawari appreciated the farsightedness of Mian Nawaz Sharif for building international standards airports at Karachi and Lahore and appealed that he should now intervene to expedite the completion work of new Islamabad airport which will not only uplift the face of the federal capital, it will also greatly facilitate promoting trade, business, exports and economic activities in the region and attract more tourists to Pakistan.