The president, Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Mian Anjum Nisar, has urged the Finance Ministry and the Central Board of Revenue to waive off import duty on steel raw material, including scrap to arrest the crisis arising out of repeated price-hike that is particularly paralysing the engineering sector.
In a statement issued here on Wednesday, he said the prices of the steel products like imported billets, hot-rolled coil and cold rolled coil were increased to Rs 30,115, Rs 41,656 and Rs 45,513, respectively in last February, while the same have now further gone up to Rs 55,000 to Rs 60,000.
These unexpected increases have forced closure of hundreds of foundries, engineering units, and auto vendors, which had failed to absorb this price fluctuations, he observed.
The LCCI chief said the work on development and construction projects has also come to a halt, while several engineering units are forced to cut their production capacity.
In order to save industrial sector from devastating effects of this crisis, he said the government should immediately waive off import duty on steel product, which, at present, stands at around 25 percent and reduce regular sale tax to 15 percent from 23 percent, adding these measures would immediately bring down the prices of the steal raw material by 33 percent that would certainly provide relief to industrial units and help them regain momentum.
The LCCI chief welcomed the government's decision to allow import of re-rollable scrap.
Meanwhile, the LCCI chief has also urged the chairman of the Pakistan Steal Mills to ensure supply of billets that stands suspended for the last 15 days.
multimedia presentation
The Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry (LCCI) will hold a multimedia presentation on March 13, from 10 am to 2 pm at the LCCI premises to introduce skilled personnel from different institutes working under Technical Education and Vocational Training Authority (Tevta).
The objective of the presentation is to introduce various trades in which Tevta is training skilled personnel/manpower. Tevta would also make sure that these skilled personnel are trained to fulfil the need of various sectors of the industry such as textiles, electronics, automotive, construction, printing and graphics, etc.
The senior instructors from Tevta institutes will also give presentations for the awareness of the industry. Human resource managers are invited to get themselves registered to attend the presentation, said a spokesman of the Chamber here on Wednesday.