According to media reports, in hopes of good sales around Eid the automakers had imported CKDs/SKDs worth $62 million compared to $43 million in March and $39 million in February –a 60% increase in two months.
However, the coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent lockdown put a damper on things with most plants closed since late March. According to a source, one major reason for the increase in imports had been the introduction of the new Toyota Yaris just before the lockdown and production of other new cars as auto makers had hoped for an increase in demand from April.
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They added that orders for imported material were given 2-3 month prior to production by assemblers as it took 30 days for the shipment to arrive with another 10 days needed to have them cleared. According to the vendor, the auto makers hadn’t factored the two-month closure due to the lockdown.
Due to the lockdown, both production and sales have reached zero but that hasn’t stopped Toyota and Honda from increasing their prices. One reason for the increase has been the tax cuts in the upcoming budget so the companies have hiked the prices to prevent a price decrease post-budget and keep their profit margins in check.
What happen to rants of justifying devaluation of money to increase exports. Even local manufacturers are importing instead of increasing the production.