Pak Suzuki and Indus Motors have decided to shut down their factories

We still remember President’s interview to some TV channel where Mr. President said that everything fine and dandy in Pakistan, it’s just the interviewer who thinks that there are problems.

Apart from the problem we reported on the previous post, here’s another grave problem on the brink of which lies thousands of jobs.

Indus Motors and Pak Suzuki have decided to close down their plants temporarily to control their expenses and the production volume as demand has fallen down by a great margin.

While the economy is in shambles which makes up one important and major influence on the problem faced by the auto assemblers, there’s another, more severe and dangerous.

People, who even have the purchasing power have decided to lay low and keep a low profile by now buying new and shiny cars as that invites and undue attention of extortionists (parchi mafia).

Extortion cases have a seen a rapid rise in Karachi and people avoid buying new cars so to remain below the extortionists’ radar over whom Police is helpless.

However, this is a problem limited to Karachi but one that is rising although Pakistan Association of Automotive Parts Accessories Manufacturers (Paapam) chairman Syed Nabeel Hashmi has said that situation has come to this because of import of used cars and banning the production of CNG cars.

Pleading with the government of Pakistan to intervene in this matter, he asked the local car assemblers to resume their productions. He said the industry cannot sustain reduced productions for long and would have to lay off thousands of workers before Eid if the situation does not improve.

He added that as a result of these flawed government policies the industrial production of auto parts manufacturers has come to a massive slowdown and will result in lay off/reductions in its work force, which is currently at a level exceeding 2 million skilled/unskilled workers, employed directly and indirectly by this vendor industry.