The Younus Brothers Group’s company, Lucky Motors has signed another agreement in the automobile industry to assemble the French Peugeot cars in the country.
According to the details, the local company signed an expression of interest (EoI) and a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the PSA Groupe of France during the mid of May 2019. Groupe PSA is a multinational manufacturer of automobiles and motorbikes in France. The vehicles are sold under several brands in Europe such as Opel, DS, Peugeot, Citroen and Vauxhall. Peugeot, however, remains the largest PSA brand in Europe. Under the agreement, Lucky Motors will be assembling, manufacturing, marketing, distributing and last but not the least, selling the Peugeot passenger cars and light commercial vehicles (LCV’s) in Pakistan. So far, LML is planning to assemble these vehicles at their automobile manufacturing plant at Bin Qasim Industrial Park. It is worthy to mention here that Lucky Motors is already producing the vehicles of the South Korean auto giant KIA under the title of KIA Lucky Motors.
The other European brands such as Renault and Volkswagen, who were set to enter the auto market of Pakistan, have not yet kicked off with setting up their plants. The future of $165 million investment of Al-Futtaim Renault is still hanging by the thinnest thread due to the economic uncertainty in the country. Meanwhile, Peugeot could be the first European brand in the country through this joint venture. The CEO of Lucky Motors Asif Rizvi is hopeful that this agreement would certainly bring a dynamic change in the local auto sector of Pakistan. He told that their company has applied to attain a category A Greenfield status for this particular investment under the rules of Auto Development Policy (ADP) 2016-21. The auto policy has been the gateway for bringing an investment of more than $1.3 billion from foreign investors in Pakistan. He further ensured that all the necessary agreements will be executed in the next couple of months. Note here that the Peugeot cars will be the first European brand cars to arrive in the country under the completely knocked down (CKD) category.
The new venture will be involving an investment of $15 million to produce Peugeot cars at the existing plant of Lucky Motors. The head of the LML group believes that the future of the automobile industry of Pakistan lies in the multi-brand manufacturing of different auto giants around the world. Lucky Motors has already laid the foundation by producing KIA and now Peugeot cars in the country. According to him, it gives a wide range of options to the consumers which bring the high intensity of competition among the new and existing players in the auto sector.
It’s indeed a wonderful development in the automobile sector of Pakistan. Nonetheless, it will benefit consumers more than anyone else. What is your opinion regarding this story? Drop your thoughts in the comments space below and stay with PakWheels for more updates on this and other automobile related news.
$15m investment. Are they joking.
Just another assembler ….. bringing on ckd kits and assembling them via crude methods… they save money on airbags and provide hand wielded cars with bad quality paint jobs and money all goes back to the HQ… that’s all because of small thinking on our part of the government
They already have a plant! Its Just for a new production line or production station. Nonetheless still seems low!
If someone has a little time, please do a little research how Bad French cars are in case of Reliability, i.e. Pretty Bad.