'Surgical industry facing multifarious problems'

Chairman Surgical Instrument Manufactures Association of Pakistan (SIMAP) Waqar Amin has said that more than century old surgical industry was confronting with multifarious problems. The lack of skilled workforce, unscheduled load shedding of electricity, non-availability of gas and high mark-up banks rates were main cause of decline in the exports of surgical instruments, he disclosed.
The SIMAP Chairman said that more than 40 percent industrial units are closed due to non-availability of sui gas, which had hindered the overall productivity. Talking to Business Recorder here, he said that 100 years old surgical industry was exporting 90 percent its instruments despite of this the share of the industry in international market is 1 percent and resultantly the export was stagnant at US 261 million dollars.
The delaying tactics and ignoring SIMAP recommendation by the concerned government departments were the main reason of this sluggish trend of surgical instrument's export. During 2009-10 the total export was 221 million dollars, he said. He disclosed that more than five lakh male and female workers were engaged with the surgical industry and earning their livelihood in a respectable way.
The SIMAP Chairman said that we had focused attention on bringing out the industry from the crisis aimed at enhancing the export to manifold. The setting of Common Facility Centre" and training institute had become more imperative for the surgical industry, he said. Waqar further said that the industry was facing serious problems due to lack of trained and skilled industrial force and the establishment of training institute would help in producing trained and skilled industrial workers in different fields of the surgical industry.
At this juncture, the industry is in dire need of latest machinery costing Rs 30 million for capacity building of surgical industry and we have already submitted a proposal to Commerce Ministry for the provision of Export Development Fund (EDF), he disclosed. The SIMAP Chairman urged upon the federal government that the control of Sialkot Metal Testing Laboratory should be handed over to Surgical Association for its improvement and bringing it to on international standard.