Pakistan Steel Melters Association has urged the government to provide complete protection to the local steel industry that is backbone of the economy and thus needs to be strengthened.
The Association's Chairman Mian Iqbal Tariq in a letter to Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif, Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, Federal Commerce Minister Khurram Dastgir Khan, Federal Minister Industries, Ghulam Murtaza Jatoi and FBR Chairman said that over 300 steel melting units and more than 500 re-rolling mills in Pakistan are currently running below 30 percent capacity due to heavy influx of import of finished steel products particularly from China.
The local capacity of steel for building materials (steel bars, angle, T-iron etc), is over eight million tons and another two million tons capacity projects are in the pipe line which would come into production by mid of 2017. He said the local steel industry is capable of fulfilling all the requirement of construction steel needed by builders. Moreover, if the local steel industry gets protection from the government, it has the capacity to completely fulfil all requirements of CPEC (China-Pak Economic Corridor), Mian Iqbal Tariq added.
He further pointed out that all over world, all counties like India, USA, Europe, Turkey and Bangladesh, Korea, Vietnam and South Africa have also imposed up to 80-100 percent anti-dumping duties on steel imports from China to protect their local industry. The PSMA chairman further said that the import of duty free steel would be devastating to the economy of the country. The local steel sector is paying about more than Rs 50 billion revenue to the government. Can it be ignored? Which other sector in the country is able to pay such a huge amount to the exchequer? he questioned.
He said that Pakistan Steel Mills has never been involved in manufacture of building steel bars. It used to manufacture 50,000 tons of billets for the manufacturing sector only. This gap has been filled up by the local industry, he added.