PRO 05-04-2012_Layout 1 4/5/2012 1:01 AM Page 1
Another appalling plunge Page 02
profit.com.pk
Thursday, 05 April, 2012
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Exporters losing their marbles g
Free trade requirements S
marble export declines by 20pc in 9 months KARACHI
P
GHULAM ABBAS
akISTan’S export of marble which was increased by 68 percent during last financial year has reduced by over 20 percent during the last 9 month of the current financial year due to the deteriorated law and order situation and severe energy crisis in the country. The important industry which was eying to fetch at least $1 billion worth exports this year after the increased demands in china and other countries, has started showing alarming position of negative growth as the country has hardly exported the marble of worth $ 26.77 million during July to March 2011-2012 against the export of $ 33.75 million recorded during the corresponding months of last fiscal year. according to a fresh data provided by marble exporters, over 20
percent decline was recorded during the nine months while further decline was expected in remaining months of the financial year 2012 as security situation in the country especially in karachi was a big concern for the marble exporters. Besides the hours long power outages which have paralyzed the production and function of the industry were another major reason of loses to the exporters. according to Sanaullah khan chairman, all Pakistan Marble Mining, Processing and Export Industry, the industries in Qasba colony area of karachi which remained a flash point during the violence erupted in the city last year making the whole industrial units dysfunctional, have badly affected the over all exports of marble. The ongoing extortion and other criminal activities in the industrial area were also forcing the industry owners to close the units.
He said that it had become a routine that unidentified individuals enter the factories and hand over extortion slips of heavy amounts. In other cases, some people also phone the industrialists seeking huge money. In case of non-compliance these elements resort to firing at the factories. Though three police stations usually cover Mangophir and its surrounding areas but they failed in providing effective security to the industries. He claimed that many industrialists have stopped visiting their units for security reasons. Due to the power crisis during the last couple of months, the industry has been pushed further towards at least $ 7 million losses as its total exports by March 2012 has been recorded $ 26.77 million against the $ 33.75 million registered during the corresponding months of 2011. The country has exported marble
worth $ 19 million against the target of $ 30 million during July to January (2011-2012). The export of highly valued marble, under the present situation, was unlikely to meet even the reduced target of $ 60 million during the current financial year. He feared that exporters will miss the export target of $50 million of marble export in the current fiscal year due to deteriorating law and order and power outages, which is crippling production activities. Pakistan’s marble exports fetched $45 million in 2010-2011 and in July-February 2011-2012 export stood only $22 million. according to him, the country could hardly export marble worth $ 35 million to $ 40 million during the year ended June 2012 against the target which has already been reduced to $ 60 million from $ 100 million owing to the acute electricity crisis and poor law and order situation in karachi.
aarc has got the free trade bit right at least. There’s much to learn from the body’s move to standardise product quality in preparation of free trade in food commodities. That it has been forgotten as the essential prerequisite for falling trade barriers shows how much international trade dynamics have been skewed ever since WTO’s Doha round went off track more than a decade ago. Stranger still is the fact that it took eight years for negotiations to reach near-fruition. common since obviously has its limits. Once South asia has got a handle on food commodity standardisation, it is essential to move on to other commodity ranges sooner rather than later. Till recently, asia was credited with engineering the international bottoming out after the severity of the ’08 recession. But with china revising growth downward and India recording slowing industrial expansion, asia risks losing significance in a world where Europe’s sovereign debt crisis refuses to go away, US recovery is fragile at best, and high oil prices threaten to derail much of the cross-atlantic quantitative easing relief. Opportunities that present themselves today must be exploited forcefully. Once Saarc smoothens out other free trade essentials, there will be a quantum jump in trade within the few countries that comprise the union. The current wave of unprecedented Pak-India trade enhancement is another example of opportunities that must be built upon. asia’s economies need each other. Technically the international recession may have ended the moment two consecutive quarters failed to register negative growth, but its hangover will trouble international financial linkages for some time to come. It’s not even worth the trouble to quote Europe’s example anymore, so clichéd it has become. Our neck of the woods, long used to postures of political and financial confrontation, still features broadly weak systems and institutions (one of the reasons for the eight year delay). But the signs are good. If Saarc’s initiative is successful, numerous similar trading blocs will mushroom in no time. They have got the basics right.