KARACHI, Aug 6: The consumption of cement by the housing industry is yet to pick up as a major portion of local sales is still going towards the government's infrastructure projects like construction of roads, highways, bridges etc.
Builders and developers say the rising cement sales is not shifting towards the housing industry and the major portion of cement dispatches is being utilized in developing infrastructure projects.
A cement producer and exporter said that no significant work was being witnessed in the housing industry (private housing and apartment projects by the builders). However, he said individual buying of cement was going on for renovation and house building purpose.
He said it was difficult to give an exact share of total cement sales in the housing industry, individual buying and public sector infrastructure projects. He added that a negligible work of construction in housing sector was being carried out in the metropolis. On the contrary, work on expansion of roads, highways and bridges was going on.
Cement sales (dispatches for export and local sales) rose by 30 per cent in the first month of July-June 2004-05 to 1.362 million tons as compared to 1.045 million tons recorded in same period of last year.
Chairman Association of Builders and Developers (ABAD) Babar Mirza Chughtai said that housing industry was still waiting for the revival and the government's efforts had so far failed to pick up. He said cement was currently being largely consumed by the public sector infrastructure projects instead of housing industry.
He informed President Musharraf, in a letter last month, that people sitting at the helm of affairs at various government departments were not taking the government's instructions seriously and same bureaucratic approach was still seen at all levels.
The long pending issue of defreezing of lands in Sindh was activated but somehow or the other, the matter was still lingering on at various levels as the differential of Malkano, which has to pay to the Sindh government in order to clear his land, was too high to bear.
The long and crucial matter of regularization of building in Karachi was not taking any shape as the various fees and charges demanded by the Karachi Building and Control Authority, were too high to attract any prospective applicant.
According to Economic Survey 2003-04, the country has over 19.3 housing units. About 24.8 million units for a population of 148.7 million are required. Hence, a shortfall of 5.5 million units is estimated in June 2004. On annual basis, the country needs 570,000 units against actual supply of 300,000 units.
The survey said that several factors have contributed to the enormous shortage of houses. One of the factors responsible is housing finance, a critical input on housing sector and is too little in Pakistan with close to 1.0 per cent of the GDP or Rs3-4 billion as against the demand for about Rs70 billion. In developed countries - the outstanding stock of housing finance is over 25 per cent of the GDP while in developing countries it varies between 10-15 per cent.
CEMENT EXPORT: Total export of cement during the 2003-04 stood at 1,087,718 tons as compared to 428,602 tons in the preceding year. Pakistan has exported 128,918 tons of grey portland cement to Afghanistan and the Middle East, showing an improvement of 2.5 per cent over June 2004.
Lucky Cement Executive Director A.R. Thaplawala said that his company remained the biggest exporter of cement as compared to other companies by exporting 32,948 tons in July 2004 and 30,270 tons in June 2004.