Transfer of technology from China stressed

RECORDER REPORT 

LAHORE: Marble and granite industry of Pakistan can be transformed into a cutting-edge stone industry by adopting Chinese quarrying techniques. 

Pak China Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCJCCI) President S M Naveed stated this at a meeting with PCJCCI China affairs Wang Zihai here Wednesday. 

S M Naveed said that industrial parks would bring the cost-effective cutting, blasting and finishing technology in Pakistan that would enhance the competitive edge of the industry. All provinces in Pakistan have huge deposits of ornamental stones. Balochistan has rich confirmed deposits of marble and granite in Khuzdar, Loralai, Lasbela and Chaghi districts, whereas, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Malakand, Mardan, Hazara, Peshawar, and Kohat are the high-potential areas where quarrying and mining are already taking place, he added. 

He suggested strengthening Pakistan Stone Development Company to fill in the missing chains in marble industry. 

The extraction in Pakistan mainly comprises boring of holes in the bedrock, filled with explosives to blast the block, resulting not only in high wastage but also in smaller sized stone, substantially reducing the price, he said. 

The standard quarry wastage in the world is taken at 50 percent of the gross produce; however, in Pakistan, this reaches up to 73 percent, he said. 

According to him, wastage can be avoided by using latest wire-cutting technique and equipment, thus bright prospects of setting up joint ventures in the marble sector exist in Pakistan. 

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Pride of Pakistan

Open-ended policies mean that just as there is no control over exports, there’s no check on what’s being imported either. Whereas the outflow is that of prime raw marble, the inflow is that of top-end finished products. Since the local industry’s growth is stunted and there’s no local value-addition, the import of value-added is a double-whammy. Forget foreign markets, Pakistani producers can’t even compete in their own country thanks to the influx of Spanish and Italian products.

This means that local producers are missing out on construction projects such as Bahria Town and DHA City. “Almost all of the marble being used in these projects is imported,” says Tariq. “Because any big project wants steady quality and consistency, they have a problem getting that here in Pakistan,” explains Hashwani.

Tariq demands a change in the import policy, in line with the demand of change on the export policy, namely that which allows the local industry to move from trading marble to processing it. “There should be duty on finished products,” he says.

Poverty of Exports

 

The consequences of the unhindered outflow of marble blocks are manifold. The immediate impact is the “unavailability of raw materials” for the local market, according to Shehra. Even if the raw material is available, Pakistani buyers have to compete with Chinese buyers for their own natural resources, which most cannot afford given the rise in prices due to Chinese demand.

Local buyers are left with “second and third-rate categories of marble,” says Saifullah Naqvi, Vice Chairman of All Karachi Marble Industries Association.

Tariq explains: “We get blocks that are potato-shaped that need more work to cut. About 80 percent or so is just useless. After cutting it from six sides to turn it into a square block, we are only left with a small amount that’s usable.”

“China is the biggest importer of marble from Pakistan, however, the marble exported to China also includes semi-processed marble, which is then re-exported from China after value addition, which is hurting Pakistan’s marble industry to a significant extent,” cites a research report compiled by the State Bank of Pakistan titled Marble and Marble By-products.

Crafting

“There was a rise of demand in China after the 2008 recession,” says Hameed Shehra, CEO of Marine Industries, a processor of marble and granite. “These exports might have brought in some extra foreign currency earnings for the national exchequer, but tahe truth is that, in doing so, the country was allowing itself to be blindly robbed of its natural resource.”

From the Begining..

From Shahjahan’s Taj Mahal in Agra to Aurangzeb’s Badshahi Mosque, the subcontinent is laden with monuments that stand in testimony to the magnificence of the material used in their making: marble.

Newly-formed Pakistan continued the tradition when it constructed the tomb of its founder out of sang-i-marmar. Jinnah’s tomb, built in the 1960s, laid the foundation of the marble industry in Karachi. It would not have been unreasonable to expect that the nascent state would carry on the legacy of the past and prioritise marble as a commodity of prime interest. Instead of harnessing the potential of marble, which the country is generously endowed with, Pakistan’s marble industry is in the doldrums.

Pakistan’s marble resources are spread largely across three provinces: KP, Balochistan and Punjab. Some quarries also exist in Sindh and parts of Gilgit-Baltistan. A report published around 2010 by the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) estimates marble and onyx reserves to be more than 300 billion tonnes while granite reserves are estimated to be 1,000 billion tonnes. In comparison, marble reserves in India are estimated to be 1,931 million tonnes.

Marble and onyx reserves are found largely in Mohmand Agency, Chitral, Buner, Swat, Parachinar, Gilgit, Hunza, Swabi, Bajour, Mardan, Wazirstan, Azad Kashmir, Lasbela, Chagai and Khuzdar. The biggest onyx reserves are said to be in Chaghai District in quarries largely owned by members of the Zehri tribe. Meanwhile, the report lists Gilgit, Dir, Chitral, Swabi, Kohistan, Nagarparker, Chagai, Mansehra, Malakand and Swat as places where granite deposits exist. However, the only known sources of “workable granite” according to this official report are in Nagarparkar and Mansehra.

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