By Ayesha Mudassar ISLAMABAD, March 23 (INP-WealthPK): Pakistan has enormous potential to boost marble exports to help increase the country's revenues and promote overall GDP growth provided the procedural bottlenecks in award of quarrying licences are removed and modern extraction technology is introduced. According to the statistics of TrendEconomy, an international database, Pakistan’s marble exports have been declining over the last five years. Exports of the commodity were only 0.076% of the country’s total exports in 2020, decreasing by 0.03% compared to 2019. The marble industry also received the drubbing just like other sectors by the Covid-19 outbreak, slowing down its growth the world over.

Commodity	Trade flow	2013	2014	2015	2017	2018	2019	2020
Marble, travertine, and other	Exports	40.18	-22.36	-9.97	-29.65	-6.69	-3.57	-32.74

Value Growth, YoY (%) According to the All-Pakistan Marble Industries Association (APMIA), Pakistan has huge reserves of marble and granite, but due to a lack of contemporary technology and machinery, the country has been unable to fully exploit its rich mineral reserves. The use of non-mechanised extraction is resulting in wastage of around 70% of marble products. Therefore, the association stressed that the government should enable duty-free import of machinery to help the sector generate value-added products and boost exports. It also called for helping the investors with speedy obtaining of licences for quarrying, and encouraging the marble exporters through different incentives to participate in global trade fairs to get to know about the market standards and needs. Pakistan’s marble industry stands to hugely benefit from the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as industrial parks are being set up under the multi-billion-dollar project, offering the investors an opportunity to exploit the marble reserves of the country. These industrial parks will ensure the marble industry’s competitiveness by introducing cost-effective cutting, blasting, and finishing technology. The global marble market is growing at a rapid pace as in 2017 it was evaluated at $51.20 billion and is projected to reach $65.80 billion by 2026 at a CAGR of 3.6%. A boom in construction sector is expected to drive the market. Countries such as the US, Italy, Spain and Turkey, which have huge and high-quality marble reserves, majorly meet the global marble demand for residential, industrial and commercial infrastructure. A lack of quality manufacturing, inconsistency in raw material supply, and a scarcity of technology are major factors hindering Pakistan’s marble industry expansion. Though a few local enterprises are involved in mineral extraction, much more can be done to promote this sector, which has enormous potential to boost exports and generate jobs.