KARACHI, May 9: The president, Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), Mian Nasser Hyatt Maggo has urged the car assemblers to reduce the car prices by at least 20 per cent.

Criticising the statement of Federal Minister for Industry and Production, Liaquat Ali Jatoi regarding agreement with car assemblers for reduction in price, the KCCI president said delaying the cut in the price and not mentioning the reduction formula is another example of extra favour and protection to the local assemblers.

Further, the Minister has linked the reduction in the prices to the “approval by the Board of Directors of the respective companies,” which makes the implementation dubious, Nasser Maggo lamented in a statement on Friday.

He urged the government to withdraw over-protection given to the local car makers and revise the entire scheme maintaining that in view of the continued increase in the prices of cars since the inception of the scheme and the failure of the local assemblers to meet the demand the scheme doesn’t appear to be viable any more.

Assemblers are making the delivery of the cars, booked by the customers with extraordinary delay, while prices of cars have been kept increasing despite the fact that price of US dollar has been reduced from Rs65 to Rs58 since 1999, KCCI Chief pointed out.

Saying that the delivery system and the booking was not transparent, KCCI president lamented that the car assemblers were not ready to put the system on line, which indicate ill-intentions.

He demanded that the proper relief in the price be provided to the customers for the delay and reduction be allowed to them from retrospective in proportion with the slash in the price of dollar.

KCCI President dispelled the plea of the Japanese car assemblers that the prices could not be reduced since they are linked to the value of yen. He pointed out that, in the past, prices were increased on the basis of increase in the value of US dollar. Secondly the foreign currency ever used for the implementation of the local car assembling scheme was dollar and not yen.