The country's steel industry is in serious crisis and fast heading towards collapse owing to over import of finished and semi-finished steel products and government's recently announced liberal import policy.
The office-bearers of Pakistan Steel Melters Association and Pakistan Re-rolling Mills Association said this in a statement issued here on Tuesday after a meeting with LCCI office-bearers.
They made an appeal to the President General Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to save the steel industry from a massive closure as the government's no-holds-barred import policy is fast pushing this big sector to the wall, which may deprive hundreds and thousands of families attached with this industry of their livelihood. 'If the ongoing policy was not changed immediately, it would raise the graph of unemployment in the country', they said.
They urged the government to give a second thought to its import policy, which by all means is detrimental to this huge revenue-generating sector of the country. "Continuation of the policy measure in question will severely dampen investment and industrial growth and is likely to result in dis-investments and collapse of industry with negative socio-economic consequences."
They were of the view that the industry has the potential to cater to the country's needs particularly in the wake of October 8 deadly earthquake. "The re-rolling industry is fully capable of producing any and every type of structural mild steel products in any quantity and quality that could be needed for earthquake-hit regions."
The steel millers also demanded of the government to bring all the projects it had announced into construction phase as the steel units have already doubled their installed capacity due to rapid growth of economy. The estimated installed capacity of the steel re-rolling industry is four million tones annually, 40 percent of this capacity is being used for production of structural steel, they added.