KARACHI: Lucky Motor Corporation Ltd (LMCL) on Monday raised the prices of its vehicles by Rs200,000-Rs300,000 for the second time in less than two months.

The new price of Picanto MT and AT has been increased to Rs2.6 million and Rs2.7m, respectively, from Rs2.4m and Rs2.5m.

Sportage Alpha, FWD and AWD models now carry new prices of Rs5.3m, Rs5.8m and Rs6.3m, up by Rs300,000. The new prices of Stonic EX and EX plus models are now Rs4.425m and Rs4.725m, showing a jump of Rs275,000 each.

An LMCL official said the company is passing on high freight rates to the consumers.

LMCL had increased the prices by Rs208,000-475,000 on March 1 citing rupee devaluation against the dollar and a significant jump in freight rates.

With the latest price hike, the company has also resumed the advance booking of its vehicles which had been suspended from April 4 due to uncertain political and economic conditions, the official said.

Meanwhile, the country’s total import bill for completely- and semi-knocked down (CKD/SKD) kits for cars crossed $1.272 billion in just 9MFY22 against $1.120 billion in the entire FY21. However, the figure was $731m in 9MFY21.

The imports of CKD/SKD have been rising due to low localisation by Chinese and Korean assemblers under Auto Policy 2016-2021 as well as in the new models being rolled out by the existing assemblers.

Published in Dawn, April 19th, 2022