Muhammad Sabir Shaikh, Chairman of the Association of Pakistan Motorcycle Assemblers (APMA), has urged the government to provide tax and infrastructure incentives to small and medium-sized enterprises producing plastic-frames for motorcycles, and assist them in joint-ventures with their Chinese counterparts.
Shaikh said that the motorcycles were the vehicle of choice for the majority of people and had become unaffordable over the past year. He believed that replacing steel-frames with plastic ones would reverse this price trend.
Motorcycles have seen a steady rise in prices in 2022 with leading foreign manufacturers, Yamaha and Honda introducing 4 and 5 price revisions respectively. The price increases in motorcycles is indeed concerning given that motorcycle production has the highest levels of deletion across all automotive assembly in Pakistan, whilst price increases are necessary due to higher prices of imported inputs.
In September 2013, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers estimated that companies could expect to achieve an overall cost savings of 25%-50% by converting to plastic parts.
With an average monthly production of 147,951 motorcycles per month from January-May 2022, according to the Pakistan Automotive Manufacturers Association (PAMA), Shaikh’s suggestion might facilitate a downward pressure on steel-frames by switching to plastics thereby possibly reducing prices.
The efficacy of Shaikh’s measures, however, are questionable as Pakistan is a net importer of plastic. Pakistan imported Rs37 million more in plastic materials than it exported in May 2022. Switching en-masse to plastic may be encumbered by forex shocks that plague other imported inputs as well.
