KARACHI: Pakistani automobile part makers fear closure of their manufacturing plants as the country moves to allow used car imports and slash tariffs to 15 percent later this month as part of reforms backed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a Pakistan Association of Automotive Parts & Accessories Manufacturers (PAAPAM) member said on Thursday.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government aims to expand Pakistan’s debt-ridden economy by 4.2 percent this fiscal year, which began in July, with the support of the IMF that has set out certain conditions for the South Asian nation to keep receiving tranches of its $7 billion loan that are critical for the country’s economic recovery.
Aamir Allawala, a leading PAAPAM member and a former chairman, said the IMF-backed policy measures, if implemented in their current form and without taking Pakistan’s “ground realities” into consideration, may shut 1,200 companies that have been manufacturing and supplying steel, plastic, rubber, copper, aluminum and auxiliary parts to 13 car assemblers, including local partners of Toyota, Honda, Suzuki, Hyundai, Kia Motors and Changan.
“There are some major decisions that the government has made which includes opening the import of used cars without any [vehicle] age limit,” Allawala, the CEO of Techno Auto Glass Ltd. that supplies windshields, window glass and other auto parts to Suzuki, Honda and Toyota, told reporters in Karachi on Thursday.
