‘Pakistan importing chemicals worth $14bn’

LAHORE: Pakistan is importing chemicals worth $14 billion in a year, which is around 18 percent of the country’s total imports and second biggest after fuel imports, highlighted a panel discussion on Wednesday, urging for measures to design a prudent chemical industry policy that could help import substitution through indigenous production.

“There is a need for a policy to support local production of chemicals as it would lead to savings of foreign exchange,” said Zafar Mehmood, CEO Nimir group of companies, during the discussion at second day of Pakistan’s first chemical expo in Lahore.

The 11 months’ total imports from July-May 2022 stood at $72 billion, which to touch around $80 billion for the year, said Mehmood, adding that the chemical industry touches 96 percent of all industries.

The focus should be on reliance on indigenous raw material, he emphasised.

Pakistan Chemical Manufacturers Association (PCMA) chairman Jahangir Piracha was of the view that Pakistan needs direction for import substitution for chemicals as they cover everything from active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) to fertilisers.

Anjum Nisar, chairman ATS Group of Industries, said the industry would flourish only when it’s viable to invest and when the country exploits natural indigenous resources.

The panel stated that fundamental problem in overall structure was lack of value addition, thus imports needed to be categorised under imports for basic consumption, imports for local value addition, and imports for exports, they urged.

It was emphasised that imports for exports should be facilitated and the government should prefer industrialisation over trade with providing 5 to 10 year plans.

The panel also discussed why exports were not increasing at par with imports, giving a possible reason that utilities were expensive, which makes local industries uncompetitive.

“Cost of doing business is ever increasing and conventional ways of exports along with limited value addition are hampering exports,” the panelists reasoned.