The Engineering Development Board (EDB) Thursday held a meeting to hear the concerns of tractor industry as the latter's sales have dropped manifold and a number of plants have been shut down.
Pakistan Automotive Manufacturers Association (PAMA) and Pakistan Association of Automotive Parts & Accessories Manufacturers (PAAPAM) through advertisements in the newspapers had sought the attention of the federal government with respect to health of tractor industry, which is one the main contributors to GDP.
According to the EDB, on the directions of chairman Engineering Development Board, a meeting of EDB officials was held with the local tractor industry with the objective of getting acquainted with prevailing problems and issues being faced by the domestic tractor industry and for formulation of line of action to resolve them. The meeting was attended by CEO Infinity Engineering and convener tractor committee PAMA, GM Millat Tractors Ltd, Director Sazgar Engineering, Sr GM Orient Automotive Pvt Ltd, Ex-Chairman PAMA, Group Chief Financial Officer & Group Chief Corporate Officer, Pirani Group of Companies, representative of Al-Ghazi Tractors Ltd, CEO EDB and senior officers of EDB.
The CEO EDB informed that the government and the EDB-BOM is keen to resolve the problems and issues of the industry in order to enable it to play a leading role in the economic development of the country, become a backbone of engineering industry, and contribute towards direct and indirect employment within the country. He further informed that the government is cognizant of tractor industry's problems and would like to put in place long-term measures to arrest the declining trend in production and sales. He requested the PAMA, PAAPAM and tractor manufacturers to suggest a line of action that would facilitate the long-term growth of the industry.
The PAMA, PAAPAM and tractor manufacturers informed the officials that farmers are extremely price sensitive and any increase in prices due to external factors or imposition of duties/taxes results in severe downturn in purchase of tractor. Participants of the meeting suggested a number of measures to revive the industry which included; the government to facilitate single digit mark-up on tractor financing to farmers, reduction in duties and taxes on imported parts of tractor, reduction in GST from 17% to 5%, timely release of sales tax refunds by the FBR to facilitate the cash flow management of the industry, and removal of the condition of CNIC while booking tractors by the customers and dealers.