The Prime Minister’s Advisor on Commerce, Textile, Industries and Production and Investment, Abdul Razak Dawood has revealed that he government has decided to revive the Pakistan Steel mills within the next 18 months on Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode. This will be executed in two phases through International Competitive Bidding (ICB). In the first phase PSM will be revived at the capacity 1.1 million tons per annum and in the second phase its capacity will be enhanced to 3 million tons per annum. The blast furnace which is filled with “15ft of solid iron” will be left as it is while the other machinery will be revived and made operational
After much deliberation it has been decided that this will be done without trimming the present work force of 5000 employees which were regularized by the government.
On April 8, 2019, Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet approved the report of Experts Group headed by Khalid Mansoor of Hub Power Company and comprising CEO Engro, Rohail Ahmad, Kamran Kamal CEO Laraib, Saleem Ullah Memon CEO Thar Energy, Zulfiqar Hub Power and Syed Muhammad Ali of JS Energy in principle and now both the Ministry of Industries and Production and Privatisation Commission will submit a summary to the ECC for formal approval, after which the federal cabinet will accord its approval.
The up gradation of PSM to 3 million tons per annum requires an investment of $ 800 million to $ 1 billion. Presently, the liability of PSM is Rs 202 billion while the monthly expenditure of PSM is around Rs 1.3 billion. The government believes that PSM is a national asset at cannot be privatized in any case.
