Officials are hopeful that around 20,000 local people will get jobs and more than $100 million will be invested in the EPZ, where 100 plots are being developed under the first phase of the project.

"Nearly 95 per cent development work of the 1st phase of the KEPZ on the site of the closed Chittagong Steel Mills (CSM) is complete and its formal inauguration is likely to be held next month," KEPZ Project Director Ataul Hoque told the news agency yesterday.

He said necessary infrastructure facilities such as roads, drains, footpaths, and boundary walls have been constructed. Besides, utility services such as water, gas and power connections are going to be established.

Earlier, the government decided to turn the 222.42-acre land area of the CSM into an exclusive economic zone to meet the growing demands for special industrial plots.

Hoque said the land was handed over formally to Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority (Bepza), which started the physical work for the project's 1st phase with an estimated budget of Tk 34 crore in July last year.

"The development work of the 2nd phase to prepare another 111 industrial plots is also progressing fast to complete the whole project by the end of 2008," he said adding that the KEPZ will hopefully create some 50,000 jobs.

Besides, Hoque said, the KEPZ will fetch around $250 million in the form of investment for the industrial units to be set up on a total of 211 plots by the end of 2008.

Meanwhile, 40 out of 100 industrial plots under the 1st phase were handed over to entrepreneurs from Thailand, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and Bangladesh. More than 100 applications for allotment are pending for approval, he said.