Aamir Allawala, Chairman and Nabeel Hashmi, Vice Chairman, Pakistan Association of Automotive Parts and Accessories Manufacturers (Paapam), has said almost 400 manufacturers of automobile components employing over 200,000 workers anxiously await their fate as the vested interests in the government of Pakistan unfold their step-by-step plans to decimate the Pakistan automobile industry.
In a statement here on Monday, they said that these vested interests in the Federal Cabinet, on January 26th, overruled the Prime Minister's prudent directive to reverse the earlier ECC decision to increase the age of second hand cars to 5 years. Still not content, these vested interests, representing the traders of used cars into Pakistan, are now moving to the next step in destroying the auto-parts manufacturing base in the country.
Paapam has reliably learnt that February 1st meeting of the ECC will approve the increase in depreciation percentage on used cars from 1percent to 2 percent thereby reducing the customs duty on these cars by half Aamir said that the auto vendors and their thousands of employees are unable to understand how, the government of the Pakistan People's Party, a true champion of labour rights in the country for over 40 years, can implement policies that will surely lead to massive layoffs of highly skilled manpower in the vending industry.
Pakistan desperately needs industry-friendly policies that lead to employment generation and alleviation of poverty, rather than appeasement of elite class having power to spend millions on used vehicles and luxuries not manufactured in the country. Worst of all, they said it seems that the Ministry of Industries and Production, supposedly a protector of local production, is fully supportive of the conspiracy against the local Vendors industry, under the garb of teaching a lesson to the Japanese Car Manufacturers Paapam Chairman said that there is growing unrest in the vendor factories.
If the worse comes true, the resultant layoffs may lead to labour unrest, which might culminate in a serious law-and-order situation in the Industrial Areas. He appealed to the Prime Minister of Pakistan for compassion and bold leadership to protect the manpower and industrial infrastructure in the auto parts manufacturing industry, the third largest contributor to national exchequer and offering tremendous future potential in terms of promoting industrialisation, technological know-how, defence production, foreign exchange savings and export promotion.
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