A meeting of the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGOM) on SEZs, headed by defence minister Pranab Mukherjee, was attended by commerce and industry minister Kamal Nath, finance minister P. Chidambaram, minister for IT and communication Dayanidhi Maran, law minister H.R. Bharadwaj, and deputy chairman of the planning commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia. Kamal Nath announced that with the resolution of the issues relating to the implementation of special economic zones (SEZs), there would be a significant flow of investment into the zones over the coming three years.

For the gems and jewellery sector, the EGOM decided to retain the minimum land area requirement of 10 hectares and 50,000 sq mts of built-up area as already notified in the SEZ Rules by the ministry of commerce and industry. �Investment of the order of Rs.100,000 crore ($21.76 billion) over the 3 years in infrastructure development of SEZs and in setting up of units therein has been estimated on the basis of projections made by the promoters at the time of seeking approval for establishment of SEZs by them,� said Nath. �At present, 15 functioning SEZs (average size 200 acres) have attracted private investment of about Rs.2,200crore ($479 million) in establishment of units and provide employment to about 1.10 lakh persons,� he added.

The EGOM also stipulated that the processing area in SEZs will be 35 per cent of the total area. Approval has so far been given for setting up of 164 new SEZs in the private sector by the various state governments.