Years of neglect on the part of every successive government have left the country devoid of marble exploration. This has left a huge potential market abroad untapped. Pakistani exporters of the valuable stones are unable promote their products in Middle Eastern markets having a huge demand for marble products as the whole sector remain neglected by the concerned authorities.
IGNORING INVITATIONS
Despite repeated invitations forwarded by prominent construction companies and government agencies of Gulf countries, to participate in international exhibitions and other marble related events, the exporters here did not attend a single event to promote their products in the region which – as they claim – is going to deliver more than $500 billion worth of construction projects in 2011-15.
NEGLIGENCE
Talking about the recently received invitations various countries of the region, Sanaullah Khan former chairman, All Pakistan Marble Mining Processing Industry and Exporters Association said the association has received couple of invitations from the region but due to negligence of concerned authorities and financial constraints of exporters, none of the international event was attended.
ARAB SUMMIT
Recently, the association was invited to attend the “5th Arabian World Construction Summit 2012” scheduled to be held between May 20th and 23rd, 2012 in Abu Dhabi, which was claimed to encompass markets like Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, Egypt and Libya. Many projects of construction are scheduled to be completed in the region in the next few years which include Qatar’s $600 billion infrastructure development, Saudi Arabia – the region’s largest construction market -$365 billion of project spending up to 2015, Iraq – capital spending on infrastructure to increase by one-third, including housing and utilities, UAE – still holds the most projects with the highest values, including rail and aviation, and Kuwait – forthcoming port, airport and real estate projects highlighted.
LACK OF PROMOTION
According to Sanaullah, beside other constraints of the marble industry in the country, the negligence on the part of ministry of commerce, trade development authority of Pakistan and respective Pakistani diplomatic officials in the Middle Eastern countries was the major hindrance in the way of improving trade in marble sector.
He alleged that the authority was not promoting marble industry as compared to other industries and sectors despite the fact that the country has the best quality marble, onyx and granite. Besides, he said, the highly neglected sector was currently facing over eight hours long load shedding making the whole industry lactated in Karachi, dysfunctional causing over 65 per cent decline in exports in the last six months.
LACK OF COMPETITIVENESS
However, sources claimed that the country’s marble industry was not able to compete other industries of the world because of lack of modern technology, methods and machinery used in mining, drilling and processing despite the huge reserves in the country. Demand, they said, was the issue of the industry as it lacks the required standard and quality of the world’s market. The country was already producing less marble against the existing demands while over 60 per cent of its exports were based on raw materials mainly imported by China.
SURGE TOWARDS MIDDLE EAST
“The Middle Eastern states are the markets for value added materials,” they said adding that Pakistan could only tap lucrative markets through only developing the industry which needs immediate attention of the government. The energy crisis and hours’ long power breakdowns, especially in the small and medium-scale units of marble processing scattered along Manghopir Road, Pak Colony, SITE area and others in Karachi was hampering the production thus affecting exports of marble badly. These units, what the sources said, were needed immediate shifting to the new location ‘Marble City’ already approved area for the marble industry. It is worth motioning here that Marble exports have been highlighted as a hugely profitable sub-sector with expected volume to the tune of $1 billion in the next couple of years.