KARACHI: Truck sales and production, a barometer of local and foreign trade, posted an impressive year-on-year growth during the first six months, despite a paltry two per cent rise in the large-scale manufacturing (LSM), 11pc jump in imports and 5pc fall in exports in the same period.

Hinopak remained the market leader, with sales touching 617 units in July-Dec 2014-15 compared to 474 previous year, followed by sales of 298 Nissan trucks compared to 149, according to figures released by the Pakistan Automotive Manufacturers Association (PAMA).

Master and Isuzu sold 338 and 376 trucks compared to 220 and 185.

Naushad Riaz, senior general manager of Hinopak Motors’ Strategic Business Planning and Quality Assurance division, told Dawn that overall truck production and sales rose by an average 60pc, due mainly to the fall in the imports of used commercial vehicles.

During March 2013, age restriction was imposed on used commercial vehicles under Strategic Trade Policy 2013-15. At that time importers were using PCT 8705-9000 to import these vehicles under the garb of water sprinkles.

Import of used trucks became expensive after the reduction in age limit to five years and started falling gradually.

Riaz said that around 736 trucks were arrived during July-Dec 2013-14. The number fell to 283 in the same period of 2014-15.

Other factors that pushed up truck sales were stable economy, slight improvement in LSM, low inflation, better exchange rates and the launch of Euro-II vehicles. “I see overall sales of trucks and buses to cross 4,000 units in this fiscal year,” he said.

As for buses, Hinopak sales declined to 217 units in the first half of FY15 from 236 a year earlier. The PAMA figures did not show any production and sale figures of Nissan buses, whose sales stood at six units in July-Dec FY14.

Isuzu sold 30 buses compared to 31 while Master sold eight compared to three.

The Hinopak official believed that bus segment was following its normal trend, and sales would rise during the last quarter of the financial year when most government institutions go for purchases.

The LSM sector grew by 2pc during the first four months (July-Oct) of this fiscal year.

Pakistan overall imports rose by 11pc to $24 billion in July-Dec FY15 from $21.6bn in the same period a year ago, but exports fell by 4.3pc to $12bn from $12.6bn.

Published in Dawn, January 16th, 2015

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