Toyota-IMC pushes up car price by Rs30,000

[Naveed Yaseen]

The Toyota Corolla XLI and GLI will now cost Rs1,269,000 and Rs1,384,000 as compared to Rs1,239,000 and Rs1,354,000, respectively. - Photo by AP

By Aamir Shafaat Khan

KARACHI: Taking full advantage of rising demand, the Indus Motor Company has pushed up prices of all Toyota Corolla models by Rs30,000 which goes into effect from Monday.

An authorised dealer said that the company had linked price-hike to Yen appreciation against the rupee.

For example, the XLI and GLI will now cost Rs1,269,000 and Rs1,384,000 as compared to Rs1,239,000 and Rs1,354,000, respectively.

The IMC had cut prices in June this year by Rs60,000-90,000 after removal of five per cent federal excise duty in the 2009-2010 Budget.

Knowing the fact that the FED would be removed in the budget, the IMC had already jolted the consumers on May 11, 2009, by pushing up prices by Rs30,000.

With increase in prices by the main assembler, the other auto industry players may also follow the suit.

The price-hike had been made by IMC after the cancellation of Oct 16 meeting between local car makers and the Minister of Industries Mian Manzoor Watoo.

Before this, the same meeting was to be held on Oct 8.

The federal minister had invited assemblers to discuss at length ‘the premium being charged on locally-made cars, rising prices, delivery period, localisation and value-addition issues.’

The car-maker thought that it was right time to enhance prices as everything goes unchecked as the entire nation and even the concerned ministry was in a fix owing to series of incidents of bomb blasts, suicide attacks.

Premium is still being charged by the authorised dealers on spot purchase as many buyers are not ready to wait for longer delivery periods.

Corolla Xli and GLI, after advance booking, are being released in 15-20 days and one and a half months respectively.

People, having enough surplus cash in hand, do not bother to pay Rs40,000-60,000 on GLi and 15,000-30,000 on Xli on ready delivery.

IMC had introduced some measures to show how the company takes interest in safeguarding the interests of consumers and to curb practice of premium.

One of the steps is that a customer cannot book more than one car and it has to be registered. If a buyer insists on more than one car booking, he has to make registration of all cars.

The decision was taken in order to discourage investment activities and ensure sale of cars to only genuine buyers.

IMC has been selling an average of 3,000 cars per month since April 2009 on renewed buyers’ confidence.



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