The surge in used car import has decreased the amount of own-money on locally assembled automobiles in the country, dealers said here on Wednesday.
All Pakistan Motor Dealers Association Chairman H M Shehzad said the import of automobiles had shown a significant rise of 49 percent in the last eight months (July 2005 to February 2006) to 18,000 units over the same period last year.
He said that in the first year (July 2004 to June 2005), only 11,500 cars were imported. Now, the booking of imported cars by overseas Pakistanis had geared up and at least 16,000 cars would come to Pakistan in the remaining four months of the current fiscal year, he added.
He said that own-money on Honda cars had been completely removed after the surge in the imported cars and they were available at the company price.
Similarly, the amount of own-money had declined on Toyota diesel car from Rs 200,000 to Rs 80,000 and on petrol from Rs 150,000 to Rs 70,000 per unit, he added.
On Suzuki cars, own-money had declined from Rs 100,000 to Rs 70,000 per unit, while on Hyundai Santro car, it had fallen from Rs 60,000 to Rs 25,000 only, Shehzad said.
He, however, said the complete elimination of own-money was possible when the government further relaxed age limit of cars up to five years under the gift and baggage schemes.
He was confident that the demand and supply gap could be removed if the government allowed direct import of used cars by dealers on trial basis.
He said the local automobile industry was now producing 150,000 units per annum as against the demand of nearly 320,000 units. There was a gap of at least 170,000 cars between the demand and supply, Shehzad added.
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