History of Gadani

1969 to 1983 is considered to be the golden period of the ship-breaking industry. In the 1980s, the Gadani ship breaking industry provided employment to over 30,000 workers directly, while over half a million people earned their living indirectly, through trade and industries which used ship scrap as raw material. It was described as the largest such yard in the world.

However, increased competition from rival ship-breaking yards in Alang, India, and Chittagong, Bangladesh, coupled with relatively high import duty for decommissioned vessels, led to a disastrous decline in Gadani's output. After producing an average of one million tonnes of scrap in the 1980s, by 2001 the yard produced less than 160,000 tonnes and for ten months had no new vessel arrivals.

In 2001, the Government of Pakistan reduced ship-breaking duties from 15% to 10% and offered further incentives if industry activity improved.. The measures have been effective, with a modest increase in employment to a total of around 6,000 workers