Overview
Lucky Motors Company (LMC), the Pakistani assembler of Kia and Peugeot vehicles, has stopped new booking orders with immediate impact.
This is an unexpected development in consideration of the company’s recent announcement of a price lock offer for both Peugeot and Kia vehicles.
Lucky Motors Company Press Release
We, at LMC, have always believed in being fair and transparent with our customers. Being a customer-centric organization, we want to ensure that our customers are well-informed with first-hand information about the decisions that we take.
Reason to Take this Step by Lucky Motors Company
Keeping true to this ideology, we would like to share that, owing to the recent significant volatility of the US dollar against the Pakistani Rupee. We have no other option but to temporarily suspend the booking of all KIA vehicles. We would like to confirm that once the USD/PKR exchange rate stabilizes, we will begin bookings for all Kia automobiles.
The Pakistani rupee has fallen since the government lifted the foreign rate limit. The Pakistani rupee fell to a historic low of Rs 266 per USD. Toyota has already announced two price increases for the month of January 2023 due to currency depreciation, which the company claims has adversely affected its operations.
LMC stated that it is observing the present situation and will begin booking as the PKR settles down with the USD. It is uncertain if Kia and Peugeot vehicles would face significant price increases when reservations start. However, given the continued economic uncertainty, it is difficult to predict the rupee to make a big return against the dollar.
Conclusion
The current difficult economic scenario has delivered a huge hit to the mainly import-dependent local car sector. It will be interesting to see whether the assemblers now start thinking about improving localization in serious ways.
