Imported used cars destroying local industry: Paapam

Pakistan Association of Automotive Parts and Accessories Manufacturers (Paapam) has expressed concern on continues dumping/ import of used cars into Pakistan. Over the last six month over 33,000 used cars that are older then 5 years have been shipped into Pakistan under the guise of facilitating overseas Pakistanis, Chairman Paapam Syed Nabeel Hashmi said on Thursday.
He said that the local car manufacturing industry has badly hurt by used cars. The mostly vehicles have been repaired or stolen. Having large variants of models coming into Pakistan will surely entail huge expenditure of foreign exchange on spare parts imports. The worst part is that every vehicle imported is also a lost opportunity for our economy to create employment.
We are estimating a loss of over 30,000 jobs that could have been created, Nabeel opined. He said during the month of December 2012 approximately 6,500 used vehicles have been imported while in January 2012 might be increased to 4,000. The January figures are indeed surprising as local production of cars and LCV's have dived to 7,500, which mean that 44 per cent of Pakistan's January vehicle demand has been lost to imports. On an average we are calculating a net loss of Rs 25 billion sales to the automotive vending industry, he added.
Chairman Paapam called for the immediate rescinding of SRO 577(I) 2005 or update of its US$ based values, which are out dated and have created an un-realistic window for import of these used vehicles. Further giving customs a discretion to further reduce applicable duties by up to 60 per cent have literally made imports of used cars free into Pakistan.
Munir K. Bana, Vice Chairman added that the permission granted for import of used cars has back fired. Now precious foreign exchange has to be wasted on import of auto parts for these used vehicles. Instead of giving attention to the core issue of curtailing inflationary trend engulfing resources and endangering national integrity the GOP is allowing import of each and every thing into Pakistan to jeopardise local industry.
Bana further said that the best way of reducing car prices is to increase level of localisation. He emphasised on implementation of Auto Industry Development programme (AIDP) in letter and spirit to achieve the target.