KARACHI: Pak Suzuki Motor Company Ltd (PSMCL) has made third price hike by Rs20,000-30,000 this year.

The new price of Mehran VX and VXR has been raised to Rs739,000 and Rs795,000 from Rs709,000 and Rs762,000.

Suzuki Ravi and Bolan now cost Rs756,000 and Rs814,000 as against Rs726,000 and Rs784,000 respectively.

The new price of Suzuki Cargo van and Cultus VXR is Rs780,000 and Rs1.3 million.

The price of Swift manual transmission and Swift Automatic transmission is Rs1.435 million and Rs1.571m as against Rs1.405m and Rs1.541m respectively.

The company, in its circular to its authorised dealers, did not mention the reason of increasing the prices.

PSMCL increased prices of various models by Rs20,000-50,000 in March and by Rs10,000-20,000 in January.

An official in PSMCL, who asked not to be named, said devaluation of the rupee against the dollar has increased the price of imported parts which has been passed on to the consumers.

Car prices had been under pressure despite achieving higher localization claim of up to 70 per cent.

The overall import bill of completely knocked kits (CKD) rose by 23 per cent in July-April 2017-2018 to $655 million from $532mn in same period last fiscal.

Published in Dawn, June 2nd, 2018