Pakistan’s Construction Industry has Huge Potential

The construction sector is envisaged to play a powerful role in economic growth, in addition to producing structures that add to productivity and quality of life. It’s a major industry throughout the world accounting for a sizable proportion of most countries’ Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Gross National Product (GNP). It’s a prime source of employment generation offering job opportunities to millions of unskilled, semi-skilled, and skilled workforces. More than 70 allied industries are depending on this sector and it accounts for approximately 30-35% of employment which is directly or indirectly affiliated with this sector.

According to an estimation, the construction sector has contributed nearly 2.85% to Pakistan’s GDP in the last five fiscal years, most economists estimate its value to stand between 10 and 12% of the total GDP. It’s because it involves a broad range of stakeholders and has strong linkages with other areas of economic activities such as manufacturing and the use of materials, energy, finance, labor, and equipment

The activities of the industry have great significance to the achievement of national socio-economic goals as stated by prominent Lahore architect Abrar A. Siddiqui. According to him, the sector employs a large proportion of Pakistan’s unskilled labor force, while the main impediment to the sector remains the lack of a market for prefabricated steel and other parts.

This potential sector is the force behind countries such as China as well as in the West having massively shorter lead times for the construction of buildings. Furthermore, Pakistan does not produce its own steel, so the import of steel adds to costs and slows the process down further. Considering the fundamental significance of the construction sector in employment creation, capital formation, and its aggregate spillover effects, it is evidently a crucial sector in the economy.