KARACHI: Pak Suzuki Motor Company Ltd (PSMCL) chief executive Hiroshi Kawamura has said the company is working on the export of their cars which have been upgraded to many WP-29 standards besides work is also going on hybrid variants.

Addressing the second round of interaction meetings with the auto part makers under the banner of PSMCL, he said economic issues were transitory and the company is committed to providing affordable vehicles to Pakistani customers.

According to a press release issued by the Pakistan Association of Automotive Parts and Accessories Manufacturers (PAAPAM), there was a total consensus in the meeting to promote localisation and go global.

Mr Kawamura underlined the need to join their efforts together and take stock of the escalating crisis collectively for the automotive industry. He remarked that they firmly believed that nothing could be achieved without the local partners.

PAAPAM Senior Vice Chairman Usman Aslam Malik diagnosed the non-availability of primary raw materials, lack of technology, and low level of localisation as the core issues.

While stressing the need to attain an economy of scale to develop affordability for the common person, he said. “We must contemplate why we are still below 0.3 million in production of vehicles,” he added.

He placed a thought-provoking question before the fraternity that the frequent introduction of variants was also a great barrier to localisation. Even the economies much more robust than Pakistan did not have such frequency of variants.

He urged the local assemblers to share their non-localised list of vendors with PAAPAM to promote localisation. Mr Usman also emphasised exploring the export-after-market for engine and transmission parts, which had a high replaceability rate.

He assured its complete support to OEMs for exporting parts through a global supply chain for a dealership-based replacement parts network. The recently introduced Export Facilitation Scheme, replacing the old cumbersome DTRE by the Government, opened up many new cost-cutting venues for the global supply chain regarding duties and tax exemption. It’s up to us to respond to these moves to get regional competitiveness.

Published in Dawn, September 29th, 2023