Chairman Pakistan Ship Breakers' Association Azam Malik has said that the 'Tore Bars' are extensively used by the construction industry in general and in Karachi and Sindh due its good suitable quality, flexibility and strength etc.
The quality of 'Ship Plates Mild Steel' is equivalent or even better that the quality of billets ie 3PS/SP being imported by some companies. In the imported billets ie 3SP/PS or SR24 the carbon contents ranges between 0.18-0.22 percent whereas the ship plate has carbon contents 0.15 to 0.20 percent. Moreover the PSI strength for both the ship plates and billets SR-24 and 3SP/PS is same ie between 40,000 to 45,000 PSI.
It may be noted that at the time of building a ship world reputed classified societies check the quality and standard of steel used in shipbuilding. These classified societies are M/s. Lloyds Register of Shipping, London, M/s. American Bureau of Shipping, USA, NKK Class of Shipping, Japan etc. These societies never compromise quality and specification of steel used in shipbuilding.
Some people with motives of making undue profits are attempting to kill the steel processing industry ie the ship breaking and steel melting are trying to confuse the government and the public by providing wrong, false and distorted information.
They do not feel that killing of the processing industries would make hundreds and thousands of workers jobless, substantial loss of government revenues, substantial loss of investments.
Ship breaking is an industry which has a multiple benefits, through ship breaking the products are not only a better quality steel and scraps but also several other value added items at cheap prices such items includes Non Ferrous Metals, Copper, Brass, Aluminium, Stainless Steel, Wood, Machineries, Generators, Boilers etc which are extensively used by several other industries in the country and which if imported separately would cost millions in foreign exchange.
For the same reasons ship breaking has picked up the momentum in the neighbouring countries and millions of tons of ship scraps and its steel outputs are consumed by the these countries into the construction industries without any problems, issues or complaints.
In fact one must also note that even countries in Western Europe are now contemplating to organise advanced ship breaking facilities in their countries, one such example is Holland and Turkey etc.
It may also be noted that countries like USA & Canada also has several ship breaking sites operating for past several decades and scrap yields out of same are used in re-rolling and re-melting by local industries and in the adjoining countries.
After several years of dormant operations, Ship Breaking at Gadani is now picking up the momentum and getting active again with the right & fair policies of the present Government and favourable International ship prices.
A group of people is extremely unhappy with this revival since this would result in supply of quality steel and scraps at competitive prices. They have started the dis-information media campaign to misguide the public and the authorities. No sensible government or people with serious mind frame would kill a processing industry and support the trading.
"We strongly oppose any move towards allowing a duty free imports of steel billets or other finished products, he said, adding "We must understand the fact that Steel Billets are product and not raw material. To allow duty free imports of products for the benefits of few influential would result in killing all the steel producing industries in the country."
The present import duties and valuations structure is fair and was imposed only after consensus by all the stakeholders. of the steel sector in the country after any one sided change in the import duties, import valuation or taxes would extensively disturb the present equilibrium and is strongly opposed.-PR
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