Pakistani cement company awarded BIS certificate

The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has given a quality assurance certificate to the Pakistani company Lucky Cement enabling it to export cement to India.

Karachi, Aug 23 : The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has given a quality assurance certificate to the Pakistani company Lucky Cement enabling it to export cement to India.

The BIS has the authority to certify the quality of cement to be sold in India, whether manufactured domestically or imported.

Abid Ganatra, Director of Lucky Cement, said they are expecting to start the shipping of cement to India within 10 days.

"We expect to sell from one million tonnes to 1.5 million tonnes of cement to the buyers in India within one year," he said.

A BIS engineer had visited Lucky Cement few weeks ago and taken a sample of the cement back with him for testing, said Ganatra.

Some other companies had also received officials from BIS but they are yet to receive the certification, the Daily Times reported.

Lucky Cement had exported cement to India earlier this year, but its consignment was withheld at port because their cement did not have certification of the BIS.

However, it was later cleared on the guarantee provided by the importer. Some other companies, which sold cement to Indian buyers, had also faced similar problems, following which they applied for certification.

The landed cost of cement imported from Pakistan is around 170 Indian rupees per 50 kilograms a bag as against 240 Indian rupees charged by the domestic producers.

Even if another 30 Indian rupees is added as transportation cost, still Pakistani cement will be available for 200 Indian rupees in India.

ANI