Paapam chief for revival of tractor industry

According to Paapam Chairman, Usman Aslam Malik, this has rendered some 300 + tier 1 suppliers and thousands of workers who work in these factories and downstream industries out of work. 

The rest of the small tractor assemblers had also suspended their production, as new orders were not arriving from the cash-starved and flood-hit farmers of the country, he added.

Due to high tractor prices that basic tool of agriculture was no longer within reach of even the large land holding farmers and there had been no support both at federal and provincial level in the new government set-up, he said.

Usman said the lack of farm mechanisation policy at federal and provincial level, high level of taxation on tractors as compared to the regional counties, high inflation, floods, devaluation of rupee and unprecedented hike in power tariffs had dragged down the sale of tractors, leading to dead level production despite having capacity of producing 80,000 units annually.

“Thousands of auto parts manufacturing units which provide 92 percent parts to the tractor industry are laying off their 0.5 million workers after closure of tractor manufacturing units. Usman suggested to the authorities to launch schemes of soft loans to revive the industry based on total tractor production capacity in the country, which was currently over 80,000 units per annum.

Courtesy Business Recorder