14 May 2004	Friday	23 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425

KARACHI, May 13: Pakistan Steel has again increased this week the prices of its products. A fax release of the British multinational ICI said that it was the seventh price increase by the Pakistan Steel during the current fiscal year.

The ICI is a big user of coke as raw material for its soda ash plant has said that the "unprecedented and frequent" price increases have severely affected the downstream users of PS products.

The ICI release alleges that Pakistan Steel has recently finalized agreements with its iron ore coking coal suppliers at higher prices and it quotes analysts who attribute the recent price increase to these new agreements.

"The high priced material have yet to reach Karachi and the Pakistan Steel has pushed up prices before hand to generate extra profits", the ICI release said.