KARACHI: The overall marble sector export stood at $39.46 million during July-June 2017, registered a decline of around $18.50 million as compared to the same period last year that stood at $57.97 million, All Pakistan Marble Mining Processing Industry and Exporters Association (APMMPIEA) said.
Chairman APMMPIEA Sanaullah Khan said the export target for fiscal year 2017-18 had been fixed at around $60 million, depending that all fundamentals should stand in the favour of exporters besides under such situation the need of Marble City was imminent.
The decline of 31.91 percent in export in fiscal 2017 can be attributed to power load shedding, power outages, law and order situation besides high cost of doing business.
Marble exports under HS Code 2515, stood at $24.09 million, HS Code 2516, $893,577, HS Code 2517, $842,508, HS Code 6802, $7.09 million and under HS Code, 6815 stood at $6.54million.
During same period in previous fiscal, exports under these heads stood under HS Code, 2515, $35.06 million, HS Code 2516, $734,584, HS Code 2517, $562,397 million, HS Code 6802, $930,931 and under HS Code 6815, exports stood at $12.29 million.
Pakistani marble was of excellent quality and its products could compete with any other county’s products in the world.
He said the global trade in marble and granite was estimated at $46 billion a year while Pakistan remained a marginal market player while with improvement in its infrastructure and technology, this sector had the potential to play far more important role in increasing exports.
There was no problem of quantity but Pakistan was facing problems of quality and value addition as the country has poor infrastructure and not having modern machinery and technology to cater demand.
Frequent load shedding and power outages were proving the biggest hurdle in the smooth performance of marble industry and emphasised that government should provide a favourable load shedding schedule to marble industry so that they could adjust their production without facing much problems.
During yester years meetings with Sindh officials and stakeholders, resolution of the issue and start of Marble City project had been remained on top of agenda and work on the project should now be completed on war footing.
The government has allocated not a single penny on the development of Marble City in current fiscal year budget.
He said after setting up of Marble City, the marble exports would enhance to $2.5 billion in next few years.
Under vision 2016, in Marble City the number of industrial units has been set upto 5,000.
Pakistan has great chance of marble export as Saudi Arabia is also one of the top ten globally competitive investment destinations and has initiated the development of complete, major new cities in the Kingdom.
Government has approved Karachi Marble City proposal submitted from APMMPIEA and around 350 acre of land on Northern Bypass has already be allocated for this project.
Mr Khan said federal government has already sanctioned funds for the development of Marble City, but due to delay on one pretext to another, the project has been in doldrums. He said the PC one of this project has
already been approved in June 2007.
To compete with world marble industry, stakeholders demanded of the government to facilitate the marble and granite sector. Such facilities would also help the government in achieving full benefits from the available potential of the marble and granite sector.
Published in Daily Times, July 12th , 2017.