KARACHI, May 27: Japanese and Chinese bike assemblers have further increased the prices in the wake of losing strength of the rupee against various currencies coupled with rising rates of sheet metal and other parts.

The maker of Honda motorcycles has increased the rate of CD-70 to Rs52,990, including Rs900 to be charged from the customer on account of PSQCA, registration and transportation cost. In April its price was Rs50,890 and in March Rs49,900.

Similarly, the CG-125 Standard is now priced at Rs72,990 from Rs70,900 in April. In March it was selling at Rs69,900.

Honda CD-70 and CG-125 were priced at Rs69,000 and Rs78,500, respectively, on May 18, 2003. The company has revised its prices downward by at least three times since then.

Similarly, Pak Suzuki Motor Company Limited (formerly Suzuki Motorcycle Pakistan) and DYL Motorcycles Limited (formerly Dawood Yamaha) have also pushed up the rates by Rs1,550 per unit.

Pak Suzuki raised the price by Rs1,000 from April 1, 2008, while DYL asked its dealers in March to start recovering Rs1,550 more from the customers.

For example, the suggested customer price of Yamaha YD-100 Junoon is now Rs63,700, Yamaha-4 is Rs61,550 and Royale Rs57,650 but the customers will have to pay Rs1,550 per unit to the dealers on account of various charges. Similarly, Chinese bike makers have also pushed up their price by Rs1,000 owing to rising cost of material and parts. They had increased the rates by same amount last month.

Association of Pakistan Motorcycle Assemblers chairman Mohammad Sabir Shaikh said that the average wholesale price of a Chinese bike was now Rs34,000 as compared to Rs32,000 last month, while the retail prices hover between Rs35,000-36,000 as compared to Rs33,000-34,000 earlier.

He said in December 2007, one dollar was equal to Rs61 as compared to Rs71 in May. If the rupee fails to gain its value against the dollar in coming months the bike makers will face problems and they have to further increase the rate.

He added that Chinese bike makers had enhanced the rate twice since April, while the Japanese makers made three times increase in prices (twice in May and once in April).

The entry of Chinese bikes in the local market few years back forced the Japanese assemblers to reduce their prices to keep their market share intact. As a result sale of 70cc Chinese bikes is booming especially in the city due to a big price difference.

Chinese bikes are priced at Rs35,000-36,000 as compared to Rs52,990 of Honda CD-70.

Honda has lost its share in Karachi, especially owing to rising instances of snatching and theft, while buyers of Chinese bikes, having low resale value, do not have this problem.

The Japanese bike-makers have been lodging complaints with the government about involvement of Chinese bike makers in tax evasion and under-invoicing of parts and accessories, which they alleged was evident from their low prices despite rising production cost.

Meanwhile, Atlas Honda Limited has submitted lists of EURO-II compliant parts for motorcycles to the government for allowing import of the same from India at zero rated duty. The matter was discussed by the sub-committee on fiscal issues - indigenisation in a meeting held at the Engineering Development Board (EDB) last month.

The sub-committee was informed that none of these parts were being manufactured in Pakistan and it will take some time to manufacture these parts locally.

The bike-maker had assured that within five years capability would be developed for local manufacturing through vendors.