KARACHI: Businessmen Panel leader, Mian Usman Zulfiqar said on Saturday that the government must announce special slap to reduce the prices of local assembled cars in the coming budget to facilitate masses.
He said this is no way that whenever local manufactures desire they revised their car prices without getting even due approval and in result common people affect. The Ministry of Industries must design some mechanism to regulate the local assembler prices; he added.
Usman told though Pakistan doesn’t have the best auto industry, it is growing market. Old models launch in Pakistan after years and they are way more expensive. One of the reason is that the auto industry is still in its adolescence and in result local companies enjoyed good profits at the year end which is well seen in their balance sheets but yet to ignore due quality standards in their existing models.
He suggested some tax measures to reduce the cost of locally produced vehicles and make these more affordable to consumers, by exempting the imports made under SRO 655(I)/2006 and SRO 656(I)/2006 from additional customs duty under SRO 1178(I)/2015, the government can help reduce the cost of vehicles being produced locally.
The BMP official viewed “Time has come for the existing players to make prompt investment in capacity expansion, improve localisation, introduce new models which they justify the price first and reduce delivery time to eliminate the menace of premium,” he said, adding that an increase in production will boost tax revenue and create jobs.
It may recall here Honda Atlas Cars Ltd (HACL) raised the prices of Honda Civic and City by Rs100,000 and BRV by Rs20,000 following devaluation of the rupee against the dollar. It had raised prices in January by Rs50,000-60,000 which is unfortunate.
Similarly Pak Suzuki had earlier raised the price in January by Rs10,000-20,000 and by another Rs20,000-50,000 this month. The assembler of Toyota Corolla also increased the rates on a number of models twice – first in December 2017 by Rs 50,000-60,000 and then in March by Rs100,000-300,000. He even feared the cars arriving in the next one to two years by new entrants with low proportion of local parts might be more vulnerable to price increase than the existing car assemblers, despite higher localisation.