The News, Hina Mughal Rind
Saturday, March 10, 2012
KARACHI: China FAW Group Corporation, commonly referred to as First Automotive Works (FAW), is all set to introduce two light vehicles brands namely FAW X-PV and FAW Carrier in Pakistan, a senior company official said on Friday.
Hilal Khan Afridi, chief executive officer (CEO) of Al-Haj FAW Motors – the local joint venture partner of the Chinese group – told The News that Al-Haj FAW has invested Rs1 billion to set up an assembling plant to start production of new vehicles. The company has recently completed its assembly plant located at main National Highway, Zulfiqarabad Karachi.
He said that FAW X-PV is 1000cc mini van with a seating capacity of seven plus one, while other one FAW Carrier is also a 1000cc mini pickup for loading purpose and with a loading capacity of 1 ton, which is higher than most other vehicles of the same category.
The price for X-PV mini van will be Rs699,000 and FAW Carrier mini pickup would cost Rs609,000. The company said that within a period of three years, 100 percent manufacturing will be done locally.
Afridi said that these new additions have EFI technology and complaint with Euro4 emission standards, which are still not available in the small Japanese vehicles being assembled in the country. These two small vehicles are a new induction in the Pakistan’s automobile industry aimed to provide comfortable and affordable transport to the general masses, he added.
It may be mentioned that Al-Haj FAW Motors has been actively involved in the heavy commercial auto market since 2006.
“Our group previously was only assembling heavy vehicles. It has now decided to start production of small vehicles as well. We are the second largest heavy vehicle provider in Pakistan with a 40 percent market share,” he said.
Under this project Chinese automobile technologies will also be transferred to Pakistan in the next one-and-a-half year, he informed.
He said that it is the first automobile plant in Pakistan for exclusive production of FAW products and the assembly plant has been equipped with latest machinery and equipment to manufacture FAW trucks, Prime Mover, light commercial vehicles and passenger cars. The plant has a capacity of 11,000 units per annum which can be expanded according to the requirement. “We plan to further penetrate in the Japanese-dominated automobile market through introducing our product line in LCV and passenger car categories,” he said and added that the FAW Group is a global leader in the vehicle manufacturing industry with a 50-year history of innovation.
He said customer’s satisfaction is a major concern of the company and keeping this in mind they have established a modern service network country wide. “All our FAW dealers operate on ‘3S’ basis (sales, service, and spare parts). Our initial 3S dealership network comprises of 11 dealerships in 9 cities and we be are planning to expand our services to 15 cites,” he added.
Farhan Hafiz, marketing manager at Al-Haj FAW Motors, said that company’s vision is to introduce and capture significant share of the local automotive market by providing quality Chinese vehicles to the customer with full back up support through nationwide 3S dealer network.
He said that the company’s focus would be to change people’s mindset about Chinese automobile in the Pakistani market by providing them quality, durability, after sales support, hence giving them the best value for their money.