“The prices of tyres have been affected by a number of factors including global raw material prices increase, supply chain disruption because of Covid, depreciation of the Rupee and increase in utility prices,” said the spokesman of General Tyre.
Also, he added, the pandemic has disrupted the global supply chain and delay in shipments is quite frequent these days while the prices of containers also shot up because of the shortage.
“Another major reason was the depreciation of the rupee against other foreign currencies,” said the spokesman, adding that the higher utility prices have also impacted the industry as a whole as due to outages of natural gas they are forced to use expensive alternate fuels.
On the other hand, he added, imports are currently down because of the volatility in the currency market and the government’s demand of 100 percent advance payment on letters of credits.
“Smuggling should never be a viable option to meet the demand of a country as they both cripple the local industry and cheat the government in terms of its legitimate revenues which should never be tolerated,” reasoned the spokesman.
The spokesman said the local tyre industry is capable of growing and supplying tyres to the market. “The current gap is due to heavy under invoicing and smuggling which are the reasons the local industry is not flourishing,” said the spokesman.
He said that it is not correct that the drive against smuggling is the reason for the price increase though these efforts the government have attracted investment and as a result foreign manufacturers are setting up plants in Pakistan.
“The local industry asks for a level playing field as it would raise tax revenue and also create employment in this testing time,” said the spokesman, adding that the same has been done by the local industry in the manufacturing of farm and motorcycle tyres where imports are nonexistent.
