Pak Suzuki will Launch Celerio in March 2017- Goodbye Cultus

Pak Suzuki Motor Company, Pakistan’s largest car manufacturer with over 50% market share has finally decided to launch the standard model of Suzuki Celerio in March 2017, confirmed a company official on Tuesday.

A company official said on condition of anonymity:

“We are confident that the government will provide some incentives to us under the new auto policy. Therefore, the company has decided to launch its standard model of Celerio in March 2017.”

Celerio is a 1000cc engine car that Pak Suzuki plans to replace with Suzuki Cultus, which was launched way back in year 2000 replacing Suzuki Khyber.

This brings a complete shift in company’s earlier stated policy in which it said that all its new investments plans are contingent on the government offering the same incentives it was offering to new entrants in the Automotive Development Policy 2016-21.

All other variants of Celerio and car models will be launched from the company’s new plant that it plans to establish, provided the government allows similar incentives like the new entrants, the company official added.

Based on the earlier policy, the company in October flatly denied that it was launching any new model in the next two years. However, the top management of the company has again met with Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, and people close to the matter say that he has given some kind of hope to the three existing carmakers.

Pak Suzuki has been requesting the government to provide it with similar incentives to the ones offered to new entrants so that it establishes its new Greenfield plant with an investment of over $430 million. However, the government was unimpressed until now.

The government had not offered any major incentives to the existing top three carmakers because it was hoping to attract new automobile manufacturers. The new auto policy was approved after a hiatus of almost two and a half years and offered tax incentives to new entrants to help them establish manufacturing units and compete with the three well-entrenched assemblers.

Full Story: The Express Tribune