It is, indeed, disgusting to learn from a Recorder Report, quoting traders that the domestic bicycle making industries have almost shut down due to increasing cost of production. As the traders are stated to have pointed out, all the bicycle-manufacturing units, concentrated in Lahore, with the lone exception of one, have succumbed to the mounting pressure of low-priced Chinese varieties.
So much so that the unlamented collapse of the domestic bicycle industry has turned former manufacturers into bulk importers of the two-wheelers, supplying them to local vendors across the country. Understandably, the dealers in Karachi recalled the good old days when Pakistan was also exporting bicycles to African countries besides Afghanistan and Iran in the region and commanding increasing demand.
But as fluctuating fortunes would have it, with the glut of Chinese products they lost as much as 95 percent of the domestic market share. As for the prevailing situation in the Karachi market, the dealers are reported as saying that the sale of imported and locally produced bicycles, unlike until three years ago, amid peak buying season, could at best claim 50 percent of the market.
As for the cause of such a steep decline in demand, the dealers attributed it, among other factors, is the soaring steel and raw material prices across the world. Vendors at the largest bicycle market pointed out that normally June and July were the peak buying months for bicycles because children enjoying school vacations could persuade parents to buy two-wheelers for them.
Reference, in this regard, was also made to a marked shift in the children's leisure time behaviour to the quest for computer games, thereby confining them more indoors rather than outdoor activities. As for the price factor, it will be noted that, on average, an imported bicycle from China for children is selling in the range of Rs 2000 to Rs 3500.
However, the locally manufactured bikes of the same quality cost about Rs 400 more. The Chinese bicycles are also described as being superior with a discernible difference in so far as accessories, design, durability and overall appearance are concerned.
As for the large size locally made two-wheelers, they cost in the range of Rs 3,500 to Rs 4000, whereas Chinese varieties are selling at Rs 3,200 to Rs 3,500. There is no such difference in terms of quality, with both the imported and locally made bicycles use Chinese accessories.
It is, however, another matter that according to some dealers, prices of both locally made and imported bicycles have been soaring, due also to rising cost of rubber. Some idea of the difference made by the high cost of rubber may be had from reference to the behaviour of prices of bicycle tyres.
Generally speaking, it could be had for Rs 80 to Rs 100, with better quality costing in the range of Rs 100 to Rs 150. However, whatever the factors responsible for the sharp contraction in the demand for bicycles, no mention was made of the decline in the purchasing power of the bicycle riding section of the country's burgeoning population.
After all, bicycle alone is the common man's lone popular means of transport, both in urban and rural areas. It will thus be noted that while attributing even the suffocating glut of new model cars on the roads as the proof of all round prosperity resulting from the reforms-led thrust of the last seven years, little thought will appear to have been given by policy-makers to the causes of decline in the sale of bicycles.
Maybe, those capable of turning the tide might have got some inkling of its root cause, hence the prattle of poverty reduction. Be that as it may, the fact remains that the unwept, unlamented collapse of the nation's bicycle industry would point to a similar fate befalling other industries which are now crying for help.
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