LAHORE, Aug 23: To meet the increasing demand for cars in the country, Honda Atlas Cars (Pakistan) Limited has enhanced its production capacity to over 12,000 units a year.

This was claimed by Honda Atlas Cars chairman Yusuf Shirazi at the launch of a new model of its Honda City cars on Saturday. “In view of a growing demand for the cars, we have undertaken further expansion of the production capacity and a substantial investment has already been planned.”

“We have carefully gauged present surge in demand of cars, which is mainly due to higher remittances from the overseas Pakistanis, increased liquidity with the banks and lower interest rates. If this surge in demand persists, we would not hesitate to expand our capacity still further,” he added. He claimed that the company had also arranged several technical assistance agreements with some of its vendors to “bring technology and help expand the capacity” to meet the growing demand.

Mr Shirazi said Honda was the only company to reduce its price in the range of Rs12,500 and Rs17,500 on the call of the government. Saying the company would continue efforts to keep the prices low, he maintained that the car prices in Pakistan were far lower than in India despite lower taxes and production cost, bigger market, subsidies and other favourable conditions in the neighbouring country. “Over and above, we have to pay six per cent presumptive tax irrespective of the fact whether we make profit or not,” he said.

He said the company had already spent another Rs27 million for improving the water treatment plant and planned to invest another Rs10 million to set up an incinerator and sewerage water disposal system as a socially and environmentally responsible company.

Others who spoke on the occasion included Honda Atlas Cars CEO and president M. Suwama, Honda Motor Company Japan general manager Yukihiro Aoshima and Honda Atlas Cars general manager Ayaz Hafeez.