July 8, 2006	Saturday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 11, 1427

ISLAMABAD, July 7: The government has asked importers for seeking details about exact specification of cement from Chinese manufacturers as a precondition for the release of withheld stock at ports, it is learnt.

"The information received will be compared with Pakistani standards. If it meets one of our standards then the withheld stock or that in pipeline may be released subsequently," a senior official at the ministry of science and technology told Dawn on condition of anonymity.

The customs authorities held up around 100,000 tons of imported cement at Karachi ports last month on the basis that quality is substandard, while another quantity of 200,000 tons loaded in five ships was on its way to Karachi ports from China.

The ministry of science and technology has sent a letter to the Central Board of Revenue chairman advising him for getting information from the importers about the specification in details. The letter also carries initial assessment of the report about the quality of imported cement.

The official admitted that the importers had submitted some information to the government but that was not enough for justification of the quality of imported stocks. The ministry also tried to get transcription of the Chinese language into English to a great extent but that too was not much helpful, he added.

To get a further clear picture, the official said the importers had been advised to come up with detail specification. In the meanwhile, the results of the sampling would also be finalised in the next few days.

When asked about the results of the report, the official said the ministry of science and technology did not want to offer any comment at this stage on the quality of the imported stock. "It is too early to comment on the results. It will take around 28 days to come up with final results. We have started testing of sampling in the third week of June," the official added.There are five standards acceptable to manufacturing of cement or import of cement in the country -- Pakistan Standard 232, 612, 1631, 3047 and 4757.

On insistence, the official said the imported stock probably met one of the five required standards. However, he added that it would be officially notified when the final results came up in the next few days.

"We can not categorically say that the imported cement is not meeting the required standard. This can be decided after the completion of the test results," he pointed out.

When asked about the credibility of testing, the official said around 50 random samples had been taken from the imported stock and a standard methodology was adopted for the testing of quality of the imported cement.