LAHORE: A private tractor manufacturer claims Pakistan will start exporting tractors to three east African and three central and south Asian countries in the future, and that they are about to launch soil surveys there.

“Unfortunately, our tractor manufacturing industry is not strong as the others, thus it has been unable to export its manufacturing goods (tractors, parts etc). Now, after being allowed by the government as well as our technology partners, we have decided to start exporting tractors to Sri Lanka, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan (South and Central Asia) and three east African countries,” Malik Ehtisham Ikram, chief executive officer of the private tractor manufacturing unit, told Dawn on the sidelines of the company’s event held here to launch new models of tractors.

“We are soon launching soil surveys in these countries in a bid to manufacture tractors compatible with their agricultural land. The tractors we are manufacturing for Pakistan are not compatible with the target countries’ land,” he added. In this case, he said, the company also plans to deploy experienced export-focused people as we aim to execute this plan in these countries by starting exports of our Pakistan-based technologies, which are compatible with their farmers and the soil conditions.

About the impact of the ban imposed by the government on the spare parts’ imports in a bid to cut the import bill and enhance exports, Mr Ikram said the government should separately examine the tractor manufacturing industry and the automobile industry. Fortunately, he said, 90 per cent of the parts of tractors are being manufactured by this industry in Pakistan. “However, we import only 10 per cent of the parts, including fuel injectors.” But due to the ban, our manufacturing is seriously disturbed and the government would have to look into this issue since it related to food security,” he explained, requesting the government to remove some vital tractor parts from the list under the HS code.

He said his company, in the last eight or nine months, manufactured over 42,000 tractors besides allowing an increase in the warranty period of new model tractors up to 18 months.

“If we see our last 10 years, we have so far manufactured 400,000 tractors, attaining 46 percent share — the highest one so far - in the market.

The company while commemorating 40 years of its existence, introduced the 2023 models.

Published in Dawn, October 7th, 2022