Insecurity mars marble sector’s potential

Friday, December 18, 2009
By Farhan Zaheer

KARACHI: Despite immense potential of the marble sector of Pakistan, the country lacks proper policies from the government while the remaining growth has been marred by the insecurity prevailing in the country.

All Pakistan Marble Mining Processing Industry and Exporters Association (APMMPIEA) Chairman Sanaullah Khan talking to The News said that the government efforts to revolutionise the marble sector have not been successful.

Pakistan Stone Development Company (Pasdec) is bound to develop quarries for marble extraction and the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) exhibits the marble products and market them, but their performance is still not worth mentioning, he said.

Four years back, a marble city was established at Hub, Balochistan, which still lacks basic facilities like electricity and water. Despite all these grim and difficult conditions, fortunately marble exports are increasing every year, which manifests the potential and depth of this sector.

“We are doing all on our own. From discovering new international target markets to technology, the local marble industry is achieving all without proper government support,” he stressed.

This is fact that a large quantity of marble is usually lost during mining and processing and usually people do fail in extracting marble in blocks but this does not mean that wastage goes to 80 to 85 per cent as people usually claim. The model quarries that are being set up by Pasdec raise the cost of mining to 300 per cent which puts a question mark on its effectiveness for example a model quarry of Pasdec in Khuzdar has failed.

“The problem of public organizations working in marble sector is that they have wrong people at right places,” Khan continues.

These organizations must consult private sector to share their experiences in the mining and processing sectors, Khan added.

But, Tahir Shahab, Marketing Manager, Pakistan Stone Development Company (Pasdec), a public sector company established few years back to develop stone sector of Pakistan, rebuffed the criticism on model quarries.

Shahab said Pasdec model quarries are located at prime locations and their produce will be coming in local and foreign markets soon which include Khuzdar quarry. He also informed that Pasdec is currently working on quarries in Chitral where work has slowed down owing to snowfall and colder months.

Pasdec is working in various parts of Balochistan considering the potential of this province. With the growing number of international customers, it is expected marble exports will improve further in next few months, Shahab added.

Hafeezullah, Managing Director of Ghantoot Marble, who runs a marble factory in Hub Marble City, Baluchistan is optimistic of the future prospects of the marble city.

Hafeezullah says the growth potential of marble sector is immense especially in Balochistan, a province contributing almost 90 per cent of the present marble exports of the country. But, crumbling infrastructure and lack of basic facilities has marred the growth of marble sector in Pakistan in general and Balochistan in particular.

“People who extract marble in Balochistan are extremely poor and they do not have electricity generators to produce power near quarries which causes low output both in quantity and quality,” he lamented.

Pakistan exports marble tiles, slabs, decoration pieces and handicrafts mostly from Karachi where most of the marble products manufactured or brought for exports.