The country has imported construction and mining machinery to the tune of Rs 6.14 billion during the last seven months. According to Federal Bureau Statistics (FBS), imports of construction and mining machinery during July-January 2006-07 increased to Rs 6,143 million or 11.57 percent against Rs 5,506 million during the same period 2005-06.
Market sources on Wednesday said that due to standardisation and quality conscious in the construction industry had resulted in growth of machinery imports.
Similarly, imports of machinery in the mining industry have also registered growth after the government provided several incentives. A leading builder said that several mega projects initiated in the country, including industrial estates, underpasses and over-head bridges, which required machinery to speed up their completion.
Duty concession was given by the government had attracted contractors to use latest machinery in their projects.
The builder said that several construction works, which were done manually previously now being carried out through cutters to save time and for quality production.
To plug the housing backlog, which stood at 6.19 million at present, government and private sector had initiated several housing projects across the country and asked contractors to complete them on a priority basis. The contractors resorted to import machinery for the completion of housing projects on time.
Sources in mining industry said that Pakistan has possessed quality stones particularly granite and marble but share in world exports was very low.
The government has realised the importance of this industry and provided several incentives, which encouraged the miners to import machinery for better return to their finished products.
Pakistan Stone Development Company had also invited tenders to import latest machinery to materialise over $500 million export target, sources said.