Pakistan rolls out first locally designed car
Press Trust of India
Karachi, April 18, 2005
Pakistan launched its first locally designed car on Monday, saying it had joined an elite group of 16 countries to achieve the feat.
"This is a red-letter day in the history of our manufacturing sector," Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said at the roll-out ceremony of the 800 cc Revo, designed and assembled by Karachi-based Adam Motors.
"With this, Pakistan has joined the club of 16 countries having the capability of designing an original car," he said.
However, the company admitted that the engine and transmission of the new vehicle were currently being imported from China, Pakistan's long-term economic ally.
"We are getting the technology from China and we will soon start building the engines also," Khan said. "It will be fully indigenous in a couple of years."
The car will cost 269,000 rupees (USD 4,500) to buy, Adam's chief executive officer Feroz Khan told AFP.
The same category of Japanese cars that currently dominate the country's roads cost 315,000 rupees, the company said.
Pakistan's auto industry generated sales of 51 billion rupees in 2003-04, compared with 15 billion rupees in 2002-03, according to official statistics.
Demand for cars has surged over the past few years after Pakistani banks and financial institutions began offering liberal financing packages.
Japan's Toyota, Suzuki and Honda companies assemble cars locally but are unable to meet the increasing demand, officials said.
HT Media Ltd. 2005.