February 14, 2007	Wednesday	Muharram 25, 1428

KARACHI, Feb 13: Despite increase in production capacity by all the assemblers in the last two to three years, the issue of premiums charged on spot buying and late deliveries of locally-assembled cars, which are in high demand, still lingers on.

Authorised dealers are giving four months delivery time for Suzuki vehicles while for Toyota XLI and GLI it ranges between 2-2.5 months.

If a consumer books a Honda Vtec 1,800cc then he will have to wait for four months and on many occasions the delivery time is extended to five-six months on the excuse that the company does not have CKD kits.

Premium on various models of Suzuki Mehran hovers between Rs20,000-40,000, while same amount of premium is being charged on the spot buying of Alto 1,000cc. The own money on Cultus VXR CNG is Rs30,000-40,000. Even Suzuki Bolan van standard (A/C and CNG) carries Rs40,000-60,000 premium.

Premium on XLI and GLI is being charged at Rs20,000-40,000 and Rs30,000-60,000 respectively. The own money on Daihatsu Cuore CNG and automatic version is Rs20,000-30,000 and Rs30,000.

There is no premium on Honda City as its dealers offer the vehicle on ready delivery besides offering some few thousands of discounts. Honda Civic Prosmatec transmission and VTI Oriel have Rs50,000-75,000 and Rs150,000-180,000 premium despite the fact that its production has been declining for the last few months.

All Pakistan Motor Dealers Association (APMDA) Chairman H.M. Shahzad said that despite huge investment on production capacity, the assemblers had failed to reduce the delivery period. Surprisingly, the government for the last three years had not been properly addressing this

situation.

He said that assemblers had yet to take any action against their authorised dealers who were playing the game of premium in connivance with some officials of the manufacturing units.

The government is not ready to address the consumers’ grievances who have been asked to make full payment at the time of booking in cash and they will have to wait for months to get their cars. Even on the leasing side, consumers are suffering because of late deliveries.

Market sources said that the demand of Suzuki Mehran, Alto and Cultus was high against the slow supply and same was happening in the case of Toyota GLI and XLI. After heavy investment on expansion of production capacity, the assemblers of Toyota and Suzuki vehicles had failed to reduce gap between demand and supply, the sources observed.

However, in Honda Civic many consumers had complained that the company had not been able to deliver on time. Some consumers had booked Honda VTI in August 2006 after getting assurance that the car would be delivered in September but the company had extended the delivery period to January and February on various excuses.

Market sources said that only Hyundai Santro, Toyota Diesel, Suzuki Liana, Honda City and Toyota Altis were being delivered immediately owing to low demand from the prospective buyers because of availability of used cars in lower prices thus hitting local sales of these cars.

Assemblers have been clamoring since the last few years that increase in production capacity will help address the premiums and late delivery issues but consumers are yet to see the real implementation of their tall claims.

Head of Public Relation Pak Suzuki Motor Company Limited (PSMCL) Shafiq Ahmed Shaikh claimed that delivery period of Suzuki Alto and Cultus ranged between 1-1.5 months, for Mehran 1.5-2.0 months and Liana was being delivered in less than one month.

He said that authorised dealers were not involved in charging premiums and there was no premium on any Suzuki cars. Besides, there had been no complaints from the consumers against authorised dealers. “We are monitoring the activities of our authorised dealers,” Shafiq said.

The delivery period will further come down as the company has enhanced the production capacity to 150,000 units per annum from 120,000 last year, he added.

An authorised dealer of Toyota, on condition of anonymity, said that XLI and GLI were being delivered in one month and Cuore delivery took two to three months. Toyota Diesel and Altis were available for immediate delivery and there was no premium on any Toyota car.