LAHORE, Jan 14: Insisting that WTO is not against protecting local industry, a car assembler has called for “ensuring suitable protection to the local investment to safeguard and generate more employment in the country”.

Speaking at the launching ceremony of Pakistan’s first locally-assembled Euro-3 compliant car on Saturday, Honda Atlas Cars Ltd chairman Yusuf H. Shirazi said the very fact that WTO did not bar a country from protecting its industry and investment was obvious from the way policies were made and implemented in the US, Europe and India as well as other countries for safeguarding their local industries. “It’s important to protect the local industry because it generates employment, which is in the national interest.”

Shirazi pointed out that the “government had already radically cut down incentives for localization” from well over 100 per cent to as low as 50 to 65 and 70 per cent, and at 156 per cent in the entire South East Asia. Further, he said, the government had also liberalized import of used cars through different schemes.

Talking about the local car industry’s apprehensions about the enforcement of the WTO and South Asia Free Trade Area (Safta) agreement, he said any change in the government policies, for whatever reasons, at this stage of resurgence of the economy and investors’ confidence might dampen investment climate in the country”. “It’s unwise to change the policies when the industry has already begun gaining confidence and making major investments,” Shirazi sounded a warning to the government. “It is time to consolidate the gains and not flounder them for any perceived national or international pressure. If the auto industry continues to have a fair chance it will not only save foreign exchange, but also earn it.”

He said that higher volumes with higher localization would make the country’s auto industry competitive in the international markets. “The government is now insisting that we (auto makers) must start exporting. But let me tell you that exports hinge upon volumes as well as prices on indigenization,” he asserted, implying that any further change in the auto policies under any pretext would render the auto industry uncompetitive in the foreign markets.

The company’s president Mamoro Suwama said the “car production would go up to 50,000 units annually from this year”. He said the launch of Euro-3 compliant car meant that the company was “trying its best to fulfil its duties as a responsible corporate citizen” of this country. The new model would help reduce (fuel) emissions into the environment, he said.

Marketing & planning general manager Ayaz Hafeez and executive vice president Asian Honda Motor Company, Thailand, Motohido Sudo also spoke on the occasion.