PROPOSAL FOR PRIVATE SECTOR PARTICIPATION IN TOURISM PROJECTS OF THE SARHAD TOURISM CORPORATION OVERVIEW: -------- The Sarhad Tourism Corporation was primarily formed for the promotion of sustainable tourism development in the form of an industry due to the natural and scenic resources of the province. The Sarhad Tourism Corporation has been instrumental in promoting sustainable development of environmental friendly tourism industry at the provincial, regional, local and village level. The overall plan, Regional plan and Area specific local plan are the different instruments being carried out for the drawing up the attention of the grass root level enterpreneurs and the private sector as the potential investor and the govt. of NWFP itself for appropriate funding sponsoring role. IDENTIFICATION OF THE AREAS FOR INVESTMENT BY STC. ------------------------------------------------- STC with grant from Govt. of NWFP and local donors is poised to develop the existing properties at various stages of a process that is supposed to result into the ultimate transfer those properties to the corporation. The second areas those can be associated with Govt. of NWFP are area specific plan. IDENTIFICATION OF THE AREAS FOR INVESTMENT BY PRIVATE SECTOR. ------------------------------------------------------------ The private sector should concentrate for investment in the Master and Regional plan by virtue of erecting tourist facilitating infrastructure at the spots identified . The private sector be provided with land and all basic services at the behest of govt service delivery at very nominal charges on long term lease basis through the Sarhad Tourism Corporation or bureau or authority. IDENTIFICATION OF THE AREAS FOR INVESTMENT BY PRIVATE SECTOR AND STC AS JOINT-VENTURE. There can be areas where part of the funds support permissions concessions those can be granted to the private sector by STC as part of capital investment required for the project to be executed by the private sector and thereby STC will earn in the long term and adequate amount to run its operation and maintenance costs in addittion to adding up to provincial revenue. However all the partnership with the private sector be made carefully after it is scrutinized by the govt. through hiring special services organization such as Bank of Khyber as investment organization for attracting and pooling funds for viable tourism related infrastructure. KEY AREAS FOR INVESTMENT BY PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT SECTOR AND STC AS JOINT-VENTURE. ------------------------------------------------------------------ The govt. has very easily available resources or raw material in the form abandoned, difficultly maintained and outdated buildings in the form of rest houses, inspection bungalows and out posts that can be renovated by STC and run on a sustainable environment friendly entrepreneurship basis. The present list of STC indicates around 60 properties in NWFP in addition to 18 properties specifically in Chitral which can be right away transferred to STC for renovating and operationalizing on commercial lines through leasing out to the private sector with coordination of Planning and development department and the Finance departments as co sponsors. THE MANNER OF PROPOSED PARTICIPATION WITH THE PRIVATE SECTOR AND THE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT IN SECTORS RELATED TO TOURISM. ------------------------------------------------------------------ It is almost five years that corporation have been formed and a fairly outline of the areas that have been highlighted above can be set to further improved finances availability by hiring the services of an expert international lobbyist cum advisor such as the Arthur D. Little. For any partnership that is important is the basic details are work out including its present and future indications. There is no doubt that economic internal rate of return or for that matter financial rate of return is the most profitable in terms of opportunity investment of tourism. There are successful tourism alight industries in the world that has not only generated income for sustaining not only those organization but have even resulted in charitable grants for other source social infrastructure from the corporation’s income. In terms of investment equity, property, credit and guarantee for loans if any to be obtain from loan to international lending organization has to be outlined as following: a) EQUITY: It is very important for any project to be self-sustaining in the long run but to start with hard cash is required to make it working from paper planning to physical implementation. Therefore an overall outlay of cost has to be drawn for example as given below: Example: Cost of provincial master plan estimated @ of Rs. 1 thousand billion has to be divided into five equal parts out of which one part would be provided by STC to grant in aid from the govt in form of land, building and equipment etc., along with guarantee for loans or making available line of credit for landing it to the private sector to cover up the other four parts of the total cost of the master plan as estimated one thousand billion. This works out to be eight hundred billion investment by the private sector two hundred billion investment by the Govt. through STC in the form of concession, guarantees, loans and leases etc. b) PROPERTY AND LAND AS CONTRIBUTION: Any land of the govt can be leased out to the STC on short, long and medium terms basis by mutually agreed proportions of investment settle with the private sector. However international lobbying for obtaining concession, guarantees OR international loans require the services of an expert organization that is recognize by the international law and for that matter by the international financing organization such as Arthur D. Little etc. c) CREDIT: International lending organizations including the Asian Development Bank, all the commercial private and public banks and the international financial institutions have special credit line for viable sustainable tourism infrastructure programme. In order to make the participation of international, regional, local and area specific entrepreneurs in equal proportion it is important that an expert financial institution consulting services be engaged on a long term basis that would pay of itself out of the profit that are accrued to the corporation and the govt. after the commissioning of most of the tourism development plans. d) LOANS GUARANTEE: For providing maximum opportunity to the tourism sector the govt. through the Sarhad Tourism Corporation with the support of Khyber Bank and the provincial Investment Committee would enter to the agreement with a number of potential sound and up to the mark financial investors to divert the required foreign exchange for the tourism sector to develop on sustainable basis by making the heritage as assets for an income generating industry, that may be instrumental in eliminating poverty and discrimination to the people of this region. OUT LINE OF THE PROCEDURE OR IMPLEMENTATION OF PARTNERSHIP VIA THE NATIONAL INVESTMENT COMMITTEE THROUGH INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL ADVISOR BY THE STC THROUGH GRANT IN AID FROM THE GOVT. OF NWFP FOR PROMOTING TOURISM AS AN INDUSTRY. ------------------------------------------------------------------- The Govt. of NWFP has its investment committee that may be the spring board in making responsible the Sarhad Tourism Corporation as the principal representative of the govt of NWFP for promoting tourism in the province by transforming it into a Tourism bureau. The Govt of NWFP after the transformation into an authority or bureau let it process the engagement of bank of khyber as prime financial advisory services provider . Wherein the Sarhad Tourism Corporation or authority or bureau may offer at nominal lease initially govt land and properties through the in place investment committee a window for providing incentive to the private sector and taking up tourism an industry. Transparency in financial management of the long term plans or leases be achieved through revising sustainable operation plans by the ibank of khyber expert advisory services.Similarly private sector be engaged through STC by the Govt. of NWFP involving the available platform of investment committee for concluding agreements with the potential financial institutions that are not less than the required amount of the total out lay for the tourism sector in the next twenty five to hundred years or century in the province.
Posted on: Wed, 31 Jul 2013 21:48:13 +0000
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