Automotive and accessories industry: Paapam wants special package to sustain increasing losses

The Pakistan Association of Automatic and Accessories Manufacturers (Paapam) has demanded a special package from the government to keep its units in production and meet the local and export demands.
Paapam Chairman, Malik Mohammad Aslam told Business Recorder here on Wednesday that the automotive and accessories industry was presently in crisis and several units faced shut down because of price hike and shortage of raw material.
He said prices of the raw material like MS sheets and coils had almost doubled whereas steel of Pakistan Steel Mills was also being black-marketed which had increased the industry's cost of production and products.
He said unless the government provided subsidy or makes the raw material available at the controlled rates, the auto industry could not sustain the accumulating losses.
Aslam said that the total number of auto-parts manufacturers has exceeded one thousand, providing jobs directly or indirectly to over 400,000 persons. He said the Paapam has under its wings more than 200 companies, manufacturing parts for Cars, Motorcycles, Tractors, Trucks and Buses assemblers. Investments in place, he added now exceed US $1.5 billion.
Aslam said the shortage of raw material and multiple price-hike is making it impossible for auto-part manufacturing units to meet their local and export orders which could cause heavy loss to the national exchequer and increase the unemployment.
He pointed out that the auto industry has by and large been developed through its own indigenous resources and some through technical tie-ups with well-known multinationals, both Japanese and Western. He suggested that the new elected government should have a meeting with the Paapam to discuss its problems as it is playing an active role for the promotion of Engineering Sector in Pakistan.