UK cement company to expand its operations in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD (February 01 2006): The Best Way Group of United Kingdom would expand its operations in Pakistan to meet the increased demand for cement, said its chairman Sir M Anwar Pervez. He expressed these views in a meeting with the Minister for Industries, Production and Special Initiatives Jehangir Khan Tareen.

"Pakistan is on the fast track of economic development," the minister said that as the industrial and other sectors were expanding, huge investment was needed to keep the country on track to achieving maximum economic growth.

Afghanistan has been importing over two million tons of cement from Pakistan but the demand was much higher due to reconstruction activities taking place there. Only because of high import of cement by the Afghanistan, the exports of Pakistan to Afghanistan have risen from dollars 97 million during the Taleban era to 1.3 billion at present.

Jehangir Tareen said the reconstruction in Afghanistan also offered excellent opportunity for the cement sector to increase its production. "The government is giving all kinds of incentives to draw investment from private sector to meet the growing demand because of reconstruction. There is a great scope for investment especially in the cement sector," he added.

The minister told the Best Way Chairman the government had announced to build new dams and the expansion of road network so it wanted the cement companies to increase their production.

Bestway is already establishing a plant at Chakwal along with DG Khan Cement new plant and Orascom's Chakwal Cement, we are going to have enough cement capacity as many of the units are going through expansion. One of my friend at Askari Cement told me that they have completed the expansion to 3800 tpd.Pioneer Cement has also done the expansion. We should now concentrate more on Steel industry. Also the capacity for high quality finishing products for construction like tile(granite and other types) and sanitary fittings and electrical products as many of luxury projects are coming up and will finish the buildings with high quality products. Eventually excess capacity of these items will allow us to export them to Gulf market.