<div><p>Pakistan on Thursday offered millions of dollars in tax breaks, financial aid and relief measures for its war-torn northwest that business leaders rubbished as insufficient.</p><p>"The impact of incentives that the government is announcing for North West Frontier Province (NWFP) will be billions of rupees," Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told businessmen in the provincial capital Peshawar.</p><p>The army launched a major offensive in NWFP in April and says more than 2,200 militants were killed in the districts of Swat, Buner and Lower Dir. In July, the military said most of the insurgent bastions had been wiped out.</p><p>More than 2,800 people have been killed in a series of suicide attacks and bomb explosions across Pakistan, but concentrated mostly in the northwest since government troops laid siege to a radical mosque in the capital in July 2007.</p><p>Pakistan is now pressing an offensive in the northwest tribal belt along the Afghan border, which Washington has called the chief Al-Qaeda sanctuary and the most dangerous place on Earth.</p><p>Gilani said the tribal regions, Swat and Dir were among the worst-hit areas where the government will exempt factories from sales tax.</p><p>"We will also give concessions to people and industry of these areas under other heads of taxes," he said.</p><p>The government has also exempted northwest Malakand, which includes Swat and six other districts, from paying gas bills from May to September -- the warmer months in the chilly mountains.</p><p>Swat, a former tourist resort, slipped out of government control in July 2007 after Fazlullah mounted a violent campaign to enforce Islamic sharia law.</p><p>Gilani said the State Bank of Pakistan would announce incentives to restore industry and that the government would waive loans worth 2.66 billion rupees (31.3 million dollars) obtained by small farmers.</p><p>But the package fell on deaf ears among leading members of the local business community, who immediately rounded on the weak civilian government.</p><p>"Our basic demand was that the government declare this province war-affected but his speech has disappointed the business community," said Zia-ul-Haq Sarhadi, a leading member of NWFP chamber of commerce.</p><p>"Factories are almost closed with no import and export business. He should have announced the province an affected zone, relief in various taxes and a special relief package for the business community," he told AFP.</p><img src="http://admatch-syndication.mochila.com/images/ad.gif?aid=66495033&bid=informcom" /></div><div id="copyright"><div>

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