Senate body members visit IMC

The members of the Senate's standing committee on production and industries paid a visit to the Indus Motor Company (IMC) on Tuesday. The members were briefed by the IMC chief executive Ali Asghar Jamali on the company's contributions to economy and how it is developing local vendor base to generate employment. The delegate also participated in IMC's million tree initiative by planting a tree. The IMC CEO told the committee that the local auto industry's installed capacity of 285,000 cars was expected to reach 600,000 by 2021.
He said the motorization rate of 18 per thousand showed there was huge potential for the auto industry in this sector as Pakistan would be 5.35 million units market by 2025. Senators appreciated the efforts put forth by IMC for providing qualitative products to Pakistani consumers. He highlighted that Pakistan has the record of highest sales of Corolla in Asia Pacific, while it is fourth largest nation in the world regarding the sales of Corolla.
"All vehicles for Pakistan are approved by Toyota based on weather, fuel and road conditions and every year a survey is done in this regard," said the CEO. Members of the standing committee asked about IMC's plan to manage increase in demand to which the CEO highlighted that the company has invested 126 million dollars to increase capacity to 60,000 cars per year and is capable to produce 80,000 vehicles with over time.
Answering the question on localization and developing local vendor base, the chief executive informed the committee that IMC alone buys local parts worth of 200 million every day, while last year the company bought Rs 44 billion worth local parts, while it has 35 technical assistance programmes to ensure technology transfer. "Our flagship brand Corolla is 65 percent localized," he highlighted. He informed the committee that a single car's prices include around 35 percent of taxes that go to the government. "Corolla in 2019 is cheaper in dollar terms, despite huge devaluation, as compared to the very first Corolla launched in Pakistan in 1993. This has been achieved because of high levels of localization," Jamali said.
He requested the members to look into the issue of recently imposed Federal Excise Duty on vehicles above 1700cc. He termed it a deviation from Auto Policy which will not only sales of vehicles but would eventually dent government's revenue collection. He highlighted that orders of Corolla 1.8 and Fortuner have started dropping due to this ad hoc decision.