Buying a car is not just a marker of social status. With the expanding cities and traffic, owning a car is only logical for an ordinary Pakistani otherwise they will be forced to pay huge amounts to transportation services daily. But like owning any other asset, cars are already expensive. It turns out, car prices might hike even further in recent times.
Car Prices to increase
Usually how the automotive industry works in Pakistan is that the car parts are brought in from abroad and then they get assembled right here. But there has been a recent shortage of containers because of which there have been numerous issues including the increased shipping cost. And when you have increased shipping costs, the final price of any product is bound to rise.
The very first example of this came from Changan Pakistan. Almost a week ago, they took to their social media announcing with regret, how they had to increase the prices. They added that it was a ‘pandemic-linked container shortage’. This particular company did add that they will not be adding the price hike for the customers with confirmed booking order forms but for all future customers.
They did sound apologetic but it also means that the rest of the players in the industry will be following suit. In fact, most of them have released the statements but they have yet to issue the new prices.
Shipment containers
Malik Moin, the former Chairman of Pakistan International Freight Forwarders Association, said:
“International freight charges have surged by up to 500-700% over the past couple of months. Freight charges for cargo in a 20-feet container arriving from China to Pakistan have increased to $2,000-3,000 compared to around $700 in June 2020 and before.”
This problem is being faced by all countries in the world due to the pandemic. And we have to move past it because this problem is here to stay for some time at least. Moreover, another expected solution can be adding more shipment companies to the fold.
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