Car production by the local auto assemblers and manufacturers increased by 29.3 percent in July-January period of the current fiscal to 83,064 units compared with 64,203 units in the same period last year.

The data released by the Pakistan Automotive Manufacturers Association (PAMA) said on Monday that the sale of the four- wheelers jumped by 25 percent in seven months as the companies sold 82,469 units compared with 65,803 units in July-January period last year. However, on month on month basis, the production fell by 29 percent to 10,059 units in January 2006 compared with 14,173 units made in December 2005. However, the sales of the vehicles dropped only 5.9 percent on month-on-month basis to 11,442 units sold in January 2006 compared with 12,168 units sold in December 2005.

“Overall production of the industry is improving because of their expansion plants in the past few month,” said an auto analyst. The four-wheeler companies have started importing the Complete Built Units (CBUs) from Japan, which had not been included in the production or sales, he added. “The demand for the new brand cars has continuously been rising throughout the country,” said Mohammad Azeem, an auto sector analyst at Invest Capital and Securities, a local brokerage house. “Sales of the auto sector will further go up in future.”

The finance ministry had reduced the customs duty on the import of used cars in the budget 2005-06, which has brought about changes in the auto sector. Manufacturers and assemblers were moving towards the import of new brands instead of concentrating on local manufacturing and assembling, the industry sources said. The production of most favourite brand of Suzuki Mehran dropped by 52 percent in January 2006 to 1,764 units against its production of 3,673 units made in December 2005. Its sale, however, went down by 16 percent to 2,356 units in January 2006 compared with 2,802 units in December 2005.

The production of most favourite brand of Pak Suzuki, Mehran dropped by 52 percent to 1,764 units in January 2006 compared with 3,673 units made in the December last. However, its sale went down by 16 percent to 2,356 units in January compared with 2,802 units made in December.

The production of Toyota Corolla increased by 5.8 percent in January to 3,061 units against its last month production of 2,891 units. The sale dropped to 8 percent in Jan to 2,829 units compared with 3,075 units in December. Honda city production went up manifold in January 2006 to 2,064 units from only 132 units made in December 2005. Similarly, the data showed its sales rose to 2,006 units in January this year.

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