Middle East destination for 30 percent marble exports

Marble exports to the Middle East countries have shown rapid increase within a few months, sharing 30 percent of total marble production. Sanaullah Khan, former chairman, All Pakistan Marble Mining Processing Industry and Exporters Association (PMMPIEA) told Business Recorder on Friday that Middle East countries, which had earlier imported a minimal quantity of Pakistani marble, are now sharing a larger portion, owing to low prices.
He said the Middle East countries are saving quite a lot by importing Pakistani marble as compared to other marble exporting countries, which are costly. He said that Pakistani marble exporters have to pay less transportation and other charges and this needs to be maintained for further growth. He said demand for marble is increasing in the Middle East countries, and this can be seen as, encouragement to small marble processing units.
"After receiving very good response from the Middle East countries, the association has planned to establish warehouses to meet the increasing demand in a minimum time," he said. He lamented that Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC) is resorting to 10 to 12 hours load-shedding daily, resulting in huge financial losses to the sector, which is already suffering from inadequate resources.
He urged the government to take positive measures to facilitate the marble sector, saying the government should make a plan to provide interest free loans to install gas generators. Khan said that the sector, which was earlier generating around Rs 1 billion from domestic consumption, is now producing half of this quantity owing to frequent and prolonged load-shedding.
He said the government has completely ignored this sector in its policies, and marble exports to Middle East countries is the last hope for its survival". He said that the industry has the potential to achieve export target fixed for the current fiscal year by the government, but continuing electricity failure is hampering its growth and making it as impossible to achieve this target.