Leader of the business community and former President ICCI Shahid Rasheed Butt on Tuesday welcomed Russian offer to help revive Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) and transform it into a state-of-the-art industrial complex.
Russia made the PSM that was profitable for many years but later the political governments inducted thousands of incompetent into the institution ruining it, he said.
Shahid Rasheed Butt said that the unit has strategic importance was run on a non-serious way and on the political basis resulting in losses to the tune of billions.
Now Inter RAO Engineering, a major Russian company having global stakes and monopoly over import and export of electricity in Russia has offer to revive the PSM and provide five billion dollars for export support financing.
The government should seriously consider the offer as the revival of this sick unit would provide jobs to thousands produce iron and steel worth billions and generate handsome revenue.
Protracted silence over the offer is not in the interest of anyone as all the efforts to revive with the help of local experts have failed.
The business leader said the top government officials should avoid spreading confusion over the issue as some are in favour of the sale, others want to revive it based on the public-private partnership while some have called for leasing it out which is confusing investors.
Currently, around twelve Russian and Chinese companies are interested in buying the PSM while local investors are not in the race as the volume of investment to run the unit has been estimated at one billion dollars which is beyond their capacity, he informed.
It may be mentioned that the PSM is in shutdown since 2015 resulting in heavy losses, employees have been paid in billions as salaries etc. and at the time of shutdown, the mills had approximately 15,000 employees.
