Diamond Bar Island City project: Dubai-based firm to make 85% profit

* PQA cancelled lease with Pakistan Navy to offer land to Emaar

By Razzak Abro

KARACHI:

In exchange for developing the Diamond Bar Island City on Bandal and Buddo islands, the Dubai-based firm M/S Emaar Properties would get 85 percent profit from the project, sources in the Port Qasim Authority (PQA) told Daily Times Friday.

According to the officially agreed upon formula, both M/S Emaar and the PQA would enter into a 15 percent-85 percent profit sharing partnership. M/S Emaar would provide all capital funding to develop the land and the PQA would lease out 12,000 acres of the two islands to the construction firm. The estimated cost of the project is US$43.135 billion.

According to the proposed land-use plan, the project would have residential villas and apartments, hotels, shopping centres, offices and business centres, a golf course, hospitals, clinics, schools, technical institutions, universities, a marina, resorts, theme parks and co-generation plants. There would also be six to eight lane highway bridges linking the proposed Diamond Bar Island City with the main city land.

According to sources, the PQA had signed the MoU for the project with Emaar after canceling the lease of some 2,669 acres of land of Bandal Island to the Pakistan Navy (PN) that the PQA had granted it in 1980. The PQA had leased the land to the PN on an annual rent basis for defence purposes. The PQA cancelled the lease on the grounds that the PN had failed to establish navel facilities on the land and pay the due payment to the PQA. In July 2005, the PQA had served notice to the PN authorities to vacate the land.

The PN did not, however, want to vacate the land and approached the PQA in March 2006 with the request that the lease agreement should not be cancelled as it was still under process with the military authorities for approval of its operational utilization plans. The PQA rejected the request made by the PN authorities, cancelled the lease in April 2006, and directed it to formally hand over the control of the land.

Sources said that the PQA had also cancelled the land lease to the PN in 1993 but had latter withdrawn its orders after the military authorities concerned had approached it and assured it that navel facilities would be established soon.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Daily Times