KARACHI: A comprehensive steel policy would be rolled out soon with the active consultation with the stakeholders of steel sector for which a two-member team has been nominated from PALSP side, a senior government official said.
Chairing a session of the consultative meeting on the country’s steel policy with the leading steel industry players at the office of Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC), Federal Minister for Industries and Production Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtyar said that once the policy was finalised, it would help the government resolve all the issues being faced by the stakeholders of the steel industry.
He asked them to extend all kinds of support in drafting the comprehensive policy, as the suggestions of all stakeholders could be incorporated.
The minister also said the federal government was planning to develop approximately 7,500 acres of land in steel mills area as cluster-based Special Economic Zones through PIDC.
He asked the steel sector participants to jointly put up a captive power plant in that project to meet their power needs at lower rates.
The first phase of the upcoming project on 1,500 acres of land, for which the government has allocated Rs7 billion under the PSDP, will allow the government land to be allotted on a low upfront cost for the industries with the remaining payments to be made in five to seven years easy installments on a pay-as-you-earn model, Bakhtyar said.
The meeting was informed that with the current economic growth trajectory, Pakistan would need 30 million tonnes of long and flat steel products in the next five years. Besides, various aspects of tariff structure, land cost, and energy requirements of the sector came under discussion in the meeting.
Representing Pakistan Association of Large Steel Producers (PALSP), Abbas Akbar Ali emphasised the need for at least a 10-year policy so that the sector could make investments with a peace of mind.
The federal minister said the government took notice of the slow pace of colonisation of the Special Economic Zones in the country and discovered that most of the developers were unable to cater to the energy needs of the industry, which was stifling the growth of industrialisation in their zones for decades.
The PTI government, for the first time, intervened to provide PSDP funding for the energy supply projects of the SEZs and has allocated Rs22 billion for the SEZ energy projects since 2019, he said.
PIDC CEO Rizwan Bhatti said that since the release of the government’s funding for the grid, the National Parks Development and Management Company (NIP) had received numerous allotment applications.
He said in the last week alone, the SEZ committee has made allotments to 14 applicants for 70 acres of land with Rs13 billion expected investment and 3,700 new job opportunities.
He also said in line with the federal government’s SME Policy, to accommodate smaller enterprises, 100 acres of land at Bin Qasim Industrial Park (BQIP) has been allocated for plots having size of one kanal and upwards.
Later, Bakhtyar was joined by Sindh Governor Imran Ismail at the PIDC in a virtual groundbreaking ceremony of a federal government-funded 132kV grid at a cost of Rs1.5 billion for Bin Qasim Industrial Park, a Special Economic Zone developed by the National Parks Development and Management Company, which is a subsidiary company of PIDC.
