It is time that Pakistani consumers stopped paying for these sacred cows and let them compete openly
ISLAMABAD: In his letter to the editor, “Import of used cars” (August 11), Mr Shahmeer Malik propagates an auto manufacturers’ point of view to promote the government-sponsored oligopoly. On average, Pakistan sells around 160,000 new vehicles and imports around 30,000 used ones annually. Comparably equipped large cars cost around Rs7-10 lacs more in Pakistan than they cost in the US (according to Edmund.com), while smaller cars cost around Rs5 lacs more than an Indian one (according to television commercials on Indian channels). All of these differences accumulate to around Rs100-150 billion additionally that Pakistani consumers pay for their vehicles than if they bought these cars in international markets.
I doubt that any loss in jobs in the auto sector because of imported cars being allowed in the Pakistani market is equal to the loss that consumers currently suffer because of over-priced local cars. If the extra money that local car companies charge is allowed to circulate within the economy, it could give the economy a big boost. Furthermore, the math that Mr Malik employs does not account for the quality of the local vehicles. I drive a five-year-old Toyota Wish that I bought three years ago, which still drives better and has a higher quality of craftsmanship than the cars that my colleagues have bought this year from local companies. It is time that Pakistani consumers stopped paying for these sacred cows and let them compete openly.
Dr Adnan Khan
Published in The Express Tribune, August 16th, 2015.
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