65 foreign ships arrive at Gadani for breaking

[Naveed Yaseen]

By Moonis Ahmed

KARACHI: At least sixty-five ships have arrived at the Gadani ship-breaking yard from various countries for scrapping. More are expected to reach shortly.

According to a senior official of Customs, the ship breaking industry would flourish once again in the country with the arrival of 65 old ships. The country had not received such a large number of ships during the last two decades.

He said that it would not only provide job opportunities to thousands of workers, but would also provide a boost to the steel industry because these 65 ships would produce around 500,000 tonnes of scrap.

He said that government had received around Rs 1 billion in customs duty and income tax on import of these ships. The official said that the ship breaking industry was at its peak in the 1970s when up to 150 ships were brought to the Gadani ship-breaking yard.

However, the industry lost its charm in the 1990s when the prices of old ships increased and duty was imposed on ship breaking. He said that this led to an increase in the smuggling of scrap from Iran and Afghanistan to Pakistan. The smuggling would now come to a halt after the revival of the local ship-breaking industry, he said.

According to Pakistan Ship Breakers’ Association (PSBA) president Dewan Muhammad Rizwan Farooqui around 72 medium- and small-sized ships have anchored on the Gadani shipyard during last one year.

“Before the budget there were rumors about tax being imposed on the industry, but on the request of Balochistan chief minister no tax has been imposed on the industry,” he said, adding: “Now we are hopeful that in the next fiscal year we will be able to produce about 550,000 tonnes of steel scrap.”

He said that the ship breakers had set a target to produce around 500,000 LDT steel scrap by the end of the fiscal year as the local demand for ship billets and scrap metal had surged sharply.

Downturn in construction and engineering sectors besides decreasing international prices of raw material had reduced the demand for steel about six months ago.

Farooqui said that around 8,000 workers were earning their livelihood at Gadani dockyard and with this increase in pace of work the number of employment opportunities would increase.

PSBA president said that Pakistan’s ship breaking industry made available 152,260 LDT steel and metal scrap through dismantling of 34 ships of various sizes in 2007.

In the last 10 years, the ship-breaking industry had produced 926,067 LDT scrap by breaking up 64 vessels of different sizes. The industry had contributed Rs 3.53 billion to the national exchequer on account of taxes and duties during this period.

He said the ship-breaking industry had seen its peak in the 1980s when it was called the biggest ship breaking industry in the world. It used to provide employment to over 30,000 workers directly, while over a half million people earned their living indirectly from industries which used ship scrap as raw material. In 1985-86, the ship breaking industry helped the country in making an annual saving of Rs 1.5 billion, which would otherwise have been spent on import of iron and steel.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp...2009_pg5_1