Ingots ban in offing

Anjana Samarasinghe.

BAN: The Government expects to ban ingots exports in the near future.

Secretary to the Ministry of Industrial Development J.P Hettiarachchi told Daily News that they are planning to ban ingots exports to facilitate the local metal industrialists in gaining raw materials for the industry.

Chairman of the Foundry Development Services Institute FDSI M. Samarasinghe told Daily News metal industrialists met the Prime Minister, Minister of Industrial Development and Minister of Rural Industries and Self Employment Promotion recently. Banning ingots exports was discussed at the meeting.

Few months back the Government also asked to wind up operations from BOI industries, that involve in scrap metal exports and they have given one years time to close down their industries.

According to Samarasinghe only one company has quit from the business.

Metal industrialists also complain that scrap metal collected through the Industrial Development Board (IDB) is not being distributed among industrialists properly. Most of them go to the hands of the traders and not industrialists, he said.

However, the Government has provided Rs 200 million for purchasing scrap metal from State organisations.

The industrialists urged that there should be a mechanism to educate industrialists on the scrap metal available in the IDB, he said.

'We need to allow private traders to collect scrap metal and sell to the industrialists,' he said.

However, local industrialists consumed 500 tonnes of brass, nearly 300 tonnes of zinc, 500 tonnes of copper and nearly 1500 tonnes of scrap iron for their industries per month.