The world over, industrialisation plays a vitally important role in the economic development of a country. And, it is a recognized that industrialisation can only be promoted and sustained provided by a strong engineering base.

Engineering goods industry, or capital goods industry is considered to be a prerequisite for the economic stability and self-reliance. It is the nucleus of technological innovations and acts as a catalyst in the national and social aspects for development.

It has maximum backward and forward linkages providing opportunities to buy from and sell to other industries, and therefore can be rated as the backbone of industrial economy.

Comparing to any other industry, this sector alone contributes more on technological advancement, research, human resources and employment generation. Today, no developing country can attain rapid economic development without the sound foundation of its engineering industry.

Pakistan's engineering industry is capable of manufacturing a wide range of light and capital engineering goods, covering from nuts and bolts, steel rolled products to large complete industrial plants and equipment like sugar mills and cement plants, railway carriages and wagons, ships, trainee aircraft, etc.

In addition, cutlery goods, surgical instruments, pipes (seamless and welded), agricultural implements, construction machinery, equipment for energy sector, boilers, cranes, electrical goods, electrical motors, pumps, domestic appliances and other variety of light engineering goods are being manufactured indigenously. Most of the exports-oriented engineering industries are now ISO-9000 certified and enjoy a good reputation in the export market.

The state units managed by the State Engineering Corporation have been largely contributing towards national industrialisation.

After privatization of some industrial units in recent years, it now manages the affairs of the six companies which include, the Heavy Mechanical Complex (HMC) (Taxila), the Heavy Mechanical Complex-3 (HMC-3) (Taxila), the Heavy Electrical Complex (HEC) (Kot Najibullah), the Pakistan Machine Tool Factory (PMTF) (Karachi), the Pakistan Engineering Company (PECO) (Lahore) and the ENAR Petrotech Services (Karachi).

The HMC is a leading engineering and professionally-managed organisation with over 160,000 M 2 covered facilities and about 1,000 employee. It is the largest engineering/designing organisation fully equipped with facilities for fabrication, machining, steel foundry, cast iron foundry, non-ferrous foundry, forging, heat treatment, galvanising shops and a assembly shop, backed by a quality assurance set-up.

Having gained experience in designing and manufacturing of large projects in collaboration with globally-reputed companies, it has the resources to handle mega-industrial projects.

It is capable of producing complete sugar mills, cement plants, equipment for small chemical/petrochemical, oil/gas processing plants besides pressure vessels, boilers, road construction machinery, over-head travelling cranes, sophisticated castings and forgings for manufacturing of industrial plants and spares for metallurgical plants.

It has so far installed over 26 sugar mills of the capacity up to 12,000 TCD, six cement plants having the capacity of the 4,000 TPD, a basic chemical plant and an industrial alcohol plant. In addition, three sugar mills and a clinker grinding and packing plant for Bangladesh and Indonesia.

A major oil/gas-processing project has been completed at Dakhni field. Over 600 boilers/pressure vessels of various capacities have been produced for domestic and foreign markets.

The company has set up many small hydel power stations and part equipment for medium and large thermal and hydel power plants, in collaboration with Chinese, Japanese and German companies.

In total, it has supplied over 40,000 tons of equipment to energy and power sector for projects like Wapda, the KESC, the IPP's, the OGDC, the NRL, the ARL, the PRL and others.

The equipment supplied to power sector includes high-pressure parts for utility boiler such as super heater, re-heaters, economisers, membrane walls, headers and almost all the non-pressure parts. For the other energy sector projects, the HMC has supplied high-pressure vessels, reactors, columns, towers, converters, etc. including a good number of heat exchangers, in association with foreign partners in Germany, Japan, China, UK etc.

Besides executing commercial orders, the company invests in undertaking design and development activities too, mostly through reverse engineering, based on changing market requirements.

In the recent past it has indigenously manufactured complete centrifuges that are used for refining of sugar, and considered among the most critical items of a sugar mill.

These centrifuges, having been tested, are successfully operative in some mills. It is estimated that country would now save Rs25 million for an estimated minimum demand of sugar industry for 20 sets each year as replacement.

A paddy transplanter for mechanization of farming practices has been developed, in collaboration with the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council. The machine weighs 350 kg and uses the driving engine of 4 HP, which is easily available in the local market. A number of other products and components were also developed at cost much lower than that of imported items.

These include design and development of i) vacuum pans and crystallisers, head evaporators, low speed gearing for sugar plants, which helped to attain the deletion target of 80 per cent of a complete sugar mill, ii) pre-heater tower of 80-meter for a cement plant that was designed and manufactured domestically for the first time, iii) dam gates (of different types and sizes), complete design, manufacturing and installation, and iv) design computer software.

One of the best precision engineering facilities are available at PMTF that has four distinct product lines namely; i) machine tools, ii) automobile transmission components, iii) defence items and iv) die-cast parts.

A variety of machines selected from various parts of the world have been installed to undertake all sorts of precision engineering jobs like turning, shaping, milling, grinding, drilling, gear cutting, spark erosion etc.

Today, the PMTF manufactures milling machines, centre/turret lathes, copy milling and boring machines, automotive parts such as gearboxes, axles, steering/timing gears etc. it is a regular supplier of transmission components and other parts required for tractor industry and other automotive sector.

The company also produces non-ferrous die-castings, and has adequate facilities for tool making and tool designing. The engineering department of the company offers consultancy and technical services for setting up of training institute and engineering workshops.

Local manufacturing of ring spinning frame at the PMTF, under licensing agreement with Jingwei Textile Machinery Company of the People's Republic of China has been launched to meet the requirements of textile industry.

The company had plans for joint production and marketing of Chinese branded machine tools that include high precision lathes, low-cost CNC lathes, radial-drilling machines of different sizes, and milling and boring machines.

Also, these industrial units have made inroads in the export market and have successfully exported a wide range of plant/machinery and light engineering goods to different countries which include Australia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Turkey, Kuwait, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, UAE, besides others.

The product exported includes complete sugar plants, clinker grinding and packing plant, asphalt mixing plant, road rollers, concrete mixers, boilers, EOT cranes, dam gates, machine tools, diesel engines, electric motors, bicycles, irrigation pumps, transmission line towers, rolled material, transport equipment, etc.

The total value of export from these companies has exceeded $100 million. In conclusion, it is emphasised again that a strong engineering sector is considered to be essential for the industrial development and self-reliance.