Citing industry data, Topline Securities’ Senior Research Analyst Fahad Hussain Khan told The Express Tribune “this is the third consecutive increase in rebar prices since the government raised gas prices (up to 193%) last month…with effect from November 1, 2023.”
He said rebar manufacturers had cumulatively increased prices by Rs17,000-18,000 per ton nationwide to pass on the impact of gas price hike to end-consumers.
Giving data breakdown, the analyst said steel makers in the south (Sindh and Balochistan) on Tuesday increased rebar prices by Rs4,000 to Rs270,000 per ton.
Similarly, manufacturers in the north (Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa) jacked up prices by Rs5,000 to Rs266,000 per ton.
Khan said the latest round of rupee depreciation and shortage of imported raw material (scrap) for the industry were the other two leading factors that contributed to taking rebar prices to the current high levels.
