GUJRANWALA, May 16: The heavy influx of Chinese pottery items in the local market and high input costs have caused the local industry to collapse, hitting hard the small industrialists as well as the skilled workers.

Out of the seven top pottery manufacturing units in the country, five were in Gujranwala which had been lying closed due to the dominance of Chinese pottery products in the local market.

Besides these five big units, 50 smaller ones have also been closed by their owners.

According to some conservative estimates, the collective business turnover of theses closed units totaled up to Rs12 billion.

The slump, mainly caused by the Chinese products, was so severe that about 50 other small-scale industrialists had to move to some other businesses.

The collapse of the local pottery industry also badly hit those running the allied businesses, including importers of pottery colours, owners of packing units, sellers of China-clay, and importers of transfer pictures used in designing of pottery items.

The big units which started declining a few years ago include Lone Chine, Regal China, Prey China, Deen China, and Aero China.

Fazal Muhammad, a mechanical engineer who worked for about 20 years in the industry, told Dawn that Pakistan had in abundance every kind of raw material used in the pottery industry, and was considered ideal for the trade. But, he said, the arrival of cheap Chinese pottery products forced the industrialists to curtail their businesses.

He said that the raw materials like China-clay, quartz, and feldstar stone were purchased from Nawan Kot in Sindh, Sawat and other areas of Pakistan. But, he added, to manufacture quality items the unnecessary elements in China-clay, including Magnesia, Carbonates, Silica etc, had to be excluded which needed processing through washing plant and unfortunately there was only one washing plant in Sawat.

He said that owing to the lack of washing plants, the pottery industry of Gujranwala had to import clay from China to mix it with the local clay for producing fine pieces of pottery.

He said since the local traders started importing cheap pottery from China, the units in Gujranwala collapsed having a domino effect on small allied businesses in Sindh and Swat. .

He said the Gujranwala pottery industry had also been selling porcelain table and flat wares to the Pakistan Army and big hotels, but now these major clients had shifted to plastic-wares (melamine). This too added to the financial woes of the local pottery industry.

He said after the closure of the industry, he started importing used machinery and his whole experience in pottery production got wasted.

Naveed Lone, owner of a big pottery unit, said the local industry faced such a devastating slump because input costs were very high here. He said the rocketing rates of electricity gas and taxes had rendered the local manufacturers unable to compete against the low-price Chinese products.

He said the quality of Chinese products was also better that that of the local ones, which also contributed to the fall of Pakistani industry.

He said that first Chinese pottery products captured foreign markets and then the local, ultimately causing collapse of Pakistani industry.

He said the government could not ban the import of Chinese products because of Pakistan’s close ties with China.

Muhammad Nadeem, owner of a small pottery unit, said that the high rates of electricity, gas, and taxes compelled the small industrialists to curtail their businesses.

He said the small pottery units were now manufacturing low-cost products where quality did not matter a lot.

He said it was quite difficult for small-scale industrialists to start some other business as they mostly lacked both the financial resources and experience.

SKILLED LABOURERS’ PLIGHT: Skilled workers are among the worst-hit by the collapse of the local pottery industry. Almost 8,000 labourer families, including 3,000 female workers got unemployed following the closure of units in Gujranwala.

After demise of the industry, the unskilled male labourers mostly started working in other industries, while the female labourers, mostly belonging to Deendar tribe, became housemaids.

Muhammad Nadeem, who used to work in picture transferring section in a pottery unit (now closed), now runs a small grocery shop. Similarly, Muhammad Ahsan, an expert in finishing table wares has opened a store.

Muhammad Riaz, a former kiln supervisor at a pottery unit, told Dawn that in 2000, when the industry started declining, he became unemployed and had to face a lot of problems as he had no other skill to make both ends meet.

Muhammad Salamat, another former kiln supervisor started job in a unit making sanitary-wares.

He said that some of his skilled colleagues were doing jobs in brick kilns.