Comments on: Vehicle Import Hits All-Time High in FY21

By: jessi

jessi — Thu, 25 Nov 2021 10:56:40 +0000

This is good information, and get ready for prices to go high again. This is surely made to reduce imports so that dollars can perform a good role in local and international economy. Car manufacturers will made some policies for exporting their products in pakistan. Because pakistan is a good market they will not let it go.

By: TruongNguyen

TruongNguyen — Wed, 13 Oct 2021 12:01:01 +0000

In reply to Ali Khan.

Haha, a shame indeed. Here they sell us “Japani” vehicles manufactured using parts made in some chinese sweat shop. The information sticker thing could be greatly useful, as it is used in a myriad of developed countries, but seeing that we sadly don’t even have a governing body for vehicle safety inspections for 40 bloody years since the inception of Pakistani automobile industry…. who am I to ask for it? lol

By: Ali Khan

Ali Khan — Wed, 13 Oct 2021 03:20:39 +0000

In reply to TruongNguyen. I was surprised and saddened to find out that in countries like the US and Canada, cars carry an information sticker by law. This must be applied by the dealer in case of selling any car NEW or USED. The sticker mentions all information about the car from fuel economy rating to seating capacity to engine specs and recently the crash safety rating as well. The other very important piece of info that it carries by law is THE PERCENTAGE OF THE VEHICLE THAT IS LOCAL MADE AND THE PERCENTAGE THAT IS IMPORTED. All cars carry this info BY LAW. Any changes to this information or any modification, if caught, carry upwards of $1000 fine for the company or even a jail sentence for those involved. That is how you monitor and police your indigenous industry. This was done by the US and Canadian governments to ensure that that customer does not get swindled. In Pakistan, the customer is always swindled but no one cares. The companies are miss leading and swindling the nation but the idiots in charge just act deaf, dumb and blind (as long as political agendas are met or the right palms are crossed... Allegedly ).

By: TruongNguyen

TruongNguyen — Tue, 12 Oct 2021 21:59:10 +0000

In reply to Ali Khan.

I wonder if anyone has went thru the effort to thoroughly strip one of these “local” assembled vehicles and check every part to find out a rough percentage of localization in these vehicles and their parts, if any. I’m sure if these vehicles are assembled with imported parts, they must certainly have the manufacturing markings, data and labels to show that it is indeed an imported part.

By: TruongNguyen

TruongNguyen — Tue, 12 Oct 2021 21:53:44 +0000

And to think that the new Auto Policy was made to “reduce vehicle imports and promote localization”.

Ironic.

By: Ali Khan

Ali Khan — Tue, 12 Oct 2021 15:37:15 +0000

This is something that I have been constantly highlighting. The government is creating this problem itself by allowing all these imports by these local companies (SKD, CKD and CBU). It keeps on blaming the used car imports but that doesn’t even come close to the spend of the local Companies; and the new companies still have not managed to get their local assembly plants up and running. The government is not even bothering to ask them to speed up their process or why it is delayed in the first place.
In thirty years, Pakistan’s “industry experts” and government “industry advisers/watchdogs” have all ignored the local parts vendors. They are the ones who will truly enable us to enter the international parts expert market.
The local companies are always allowed to get away with misinformation. In all the years that they have operated here, especially in the case of the old three, we are still guessing as to the percentage of parts that are locally made. we have no clear idea about the local % of parts in any car by any company. That info is not disclosed and the government who should ask for this basic information, just turns a blind eye.
Like I have always highlighted in my writings, the government did this for short term dollar injections worth a few hundred millions. Those are now going to cost our nation billions in paying for imported parts. That has already happened in just a few months of the implementation of the second auto policy.
In all the years that we have had local car assembling in this country, no support or emphasis has been given to producing the major expensive parts in house. That is why our import bill is so high.
Even if now all of the old three companies claim “50% localization”, what kind of parts are they importing that they are costing more than a billion dollars to import. That means that none of the truly expansive parts are manufactured in Pakistan. After thirty years of having a local car industry, how very, very sad.
The government must wake up and realize that their lack of regulation is hurting this industry. they must:
Support the local vendors by making the raw material that they use/import for local parts manufacture, cheaper. As I have mentioned before in my write-ups, the raw material used to make those parts, the quality required, for both metal and plastic, is not available in Pakistan. Thus as there is no local raw material, these have to be imported; hence, the taxes should be reduced. Yes, as soon as the government helps local businesses to setup the production of such raw materials locally, then the government can stop the import to boost the local raw material producing companies.
Incentivize local car production for the car assemblers. Any vehicle that is locally manufactured in the true sense or at least more than 80-90% localized will get tax breaks. That will also incentivize the companies to finally take the local vendors seriously and cooperate with them towards a common goal.
Make a proper law for importing vehicles into Pakistan WITHOUT THE INPUT FROM THE LOCAL CAR ASSEBLERS. Like I have said before, they are the ones, because of who’s input we have a very nurtured EV policy and we have auto policies, past and present, that have their cheat codes built into them. The policy allows them to get away with all this.
Make the imports legal for at least small cars up to 1000cc for the car buyer with limited means. No more grey laws such as gift or baggage etc. The government is itself allowing these back door grey imports to continue. Do the work and make proper laws. Make the imports legal and cheap for the common man.

If after thirty years of having an auto industry, we now have our leaders calling “motorcycle awaam ki sawari” without shame or batting an eyelid. What the hell is this auto industry good for? Why the hell are the people in charge doing such a bad job of handling this industry?