October 12, 2006	Thursday	Ramazan 18, 1427

KARACHI, Oct 11: Except for a 17.84 per cent decline in sales of motorcycles, the sale of trucks, buses, light commercial vehicles (LCVs) and farm tractors witnessed a big jump during the first quarter of the fiscal year 2006-07, over the last fiscal year.

The combined sales of members of the Pakistan Automotive Manufacturers Association (PAMA) -- Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, Sohrab, Triwheeler, Qingqi and Fateh Hero -- stood at 108,526 units in July-September 2006 as compared to 130,827 units in the same period last year.

A bike assembler was of the view that agriculture indicators were not positive which made a direct impact on the sale of bikes, especially in the rural areas where growers and farmers used to purchase new bikes after a better crop harvest. Since the government is encouraging imports of farm products, the ultimate sufferers of the import liberalisation are the growers who had suspended purchasing new bikes.

He said that Chinese bikes also gave a tough time to the Japanese assemblers because of marked difference in prices and also because of cheap parts used in the assembly of Chinese bikes owing to under-invoicing and misdeclaration of parts at the customs stage.

He said industrial activities were shrinking as the government was more interested in opening imports of every item. “Imported vegetables, fruits, sugar, wheat and other essential items are some of the examples that crippled the business activities of local industries.”

On the other hand, the sale of farm tractors (Fiat and Massey Ferguson) surged by 5.46 per cent to 11,807 units as compared to 11,195 units in the first quarter of last fiscal.

Sohail Bashir Rana, senior executive director, Millat Tractors, told Dawn from Lahore that the sale of locally produced tractors had been gradually moving up owing to some positive economic signs.

However, he said Chinese tractors had also started arriving in the market after the government’s budgetary decision of allowing duty-free import of tractors. He said despite duty-free import of tractors, the price of locally-produced tractors was still competitive with the Chinese tractors. Besides, the quality of locally-made tractors is far better than Chinese tractors. The local assemblers also provide country-wide after sales and service backup.

Mr Rana said the government was giving an unfair treatment to the local industry. The government had frozen the prices of locally-produced tractors for the last few years, while there was no price control on the import of duty-free tractors, he added. He said the delivery of local tractors took one to seven months time depending on the model.

Out of total sales of tractors in the country, 25 per cent was being sold through loaning and financing scheme of Zarai Taraqqiati Bank Limited, while sales through cash and commercial banks stood at 75 per cent.

The sale of LCVs went up by 17.7 per cent to 7,650 units from 10,032 units in which Hyundai Shehzore was still taking the lead. Toyota Hilux sales dropped phenomenally to 18 vehicles as compared to 696 units. Indus Motors discontinued production of Hilux following the model run-out. It will launch upgraded replacement vehicles. Hyundai and Master

Motors gave a tough time to Indus Motor’s Hilux, while many more players are entering the LCV segment in collaboration with Chinese counterparts.

Truck sales (Hino, Nissan, Master and Isuzu) recorded an increase of 21.56 per cent to 1,122 units in July-September 2006 as compared to 923 units in the same period last year. The same players in bus segment showed a slight increase in sales of 1.7 per cent to 294 units as compared to 289 units.

Mohammad Irfan Shaikh, director marketing and sales, Hinopak Motors Limited, said the sale of trucks in August and September remained depressed as compared to July because of Akbar Bugti’s killing in the last week of August coupled with heavy rains throughout the country.

Total industry sales of trucks in July 2006 alone were 454 units, which dropped to 336 units in August and 332 units in September 2006. October was also going dull because of Ramazan, he said.

The sale of buses, he said, did not see much improvement as the industry feels irked over the phenomenal decline in commercial sales of buses as compared to government and institutional buying. “Commercial sales had bottomed out to 10-15 per cent as compared to over 50 per cent last year,” he said, adding that institutional and government buying of buses was mainly going on in Punjab, Rawalpindi and Islamabad.