PAAPAM & CBI returned from AGRITECNICA 2015 with glorious export results
Results Give Confidence to Pakistani Participants
Hannover, Germany: AGRITECHNICA – The world’s largest trade fair for agricultural machinery and equipment ended with good prospects for the Pakistani manufacturers of tractor parts and agricultural machinery.
Thanks to CBI, the Dutch Government’s department forpreparing Pakistani Engineering Sector Companies for EU market entry with CBI’s Export Coaching Programmes
Ambitious entrepreneurs in Pakistan were prepared through CBI’s Export Coaching Programme(ECP) to
• Adapt their company and products to EU market requirements and standards;
• Become familiar with EU markets and business practice;
• Develop an export marketing strategy;
• Export to the EU market;
• Consolidate export position in the EU.
With good home work and preparation carried out under the guidance of CBI Experts, five Pakistani Companies exhibited their products at Agritechnica 2015. To help these companies with their export efforts and give on the spot guidance, CBI Experts Imtiaz Rastgar and Jan Oude Elferink were present at the CBI Stand. AMI Gears, GMS Forging (Pvt) Ltd., Landi Engine Work (Pvt) Ltd., Mehran Commercial Enterprises, Power Vision and Quality Vision
Innovations in agricultural machinery and equipment and the latest solutions and concepts for the future of plant production are presented every two years at AGRITECHNICA in Hanover, Germany.
TDAP STAND AT AGRITECHNICA 2015
The importance of this fair has been realised by Pakistani manufacturers of Agri tractor parts. Somehow the other opportunities which Agritechnica offers are still out of sight of Pakistani industry.
Most of the Pakistani participants at the TDAP Stand displayed focused product lines. Several were previous CBI ECP participants, while the effect of CBI training workshops could be observed on others.
SPEL displayed an expanded product line which has gone beyond Steering Wheels to modern looking steering columns. They have made a lose collaboration with a Czech hydraulic pump manufacturer, whose pumps are used to power steering systems.
Kortech was resent with Mr. Usman Malik, who was seen busy with his aftermarket customers from UK,Ireland and Europe.
MGA industries was present with there usual products.
Infinity Engineering, Mr. Razzaq Gohar was displaying parts for MF and CNH Agri tractors.
SB Gears displayed their line of gears for Agri Tractors.
Darsons was present with their rubber products.
AgriPak , Dr. Saqib). http://www.agripak.com.pk/showed posters of their line of backhoe, diggers, planters and a range of small tractors. This company is already exporting tractors and farm machinery and intend to display actual machines at the EIMA next year.
According the Senior Vice Chairman, PAAPAM Mr. Mashood Ali Khan who attended the exhibition as a CBI ECP participant, most of Pakistani exhibitors received good response and had leads from buyers across Europe , inspire of the fact that there were exhibitors from many other countries like China, India, Italy and Turkey displaying similar products.
This year Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) had play it’s role well for the AGRITECHNICA from the stand booking till the end of event.
Pakistan Association of Automotive Parts & Accessories (PAAPAM) in cooperation with CBI, is providing in-house facilities for the technical training and skill development of the members companies with a reasonable cost at its Skill Development Centres at Karachi and Lahore. Exporting Skills are being imparted at PSDC for preparing Pakistani manufacturers for for export markets. During training participants are coached and mentored by Experts to make them stable exporters and lead their companies to export led growth.
Well trained experts are available for other coaching program, during whole year at above locations. Any PAAPAM member company can participate in the training and attend the workshops and other seminars organised by PSDC.
AGRITECHNICA is the innovations forum for the entire agricultural sector. The leading technologies and new developments shown make the exhibition a unique information platform helping to solve all problems encountered in farming and questions related to agricultural equipment and machinery.
Known as the melting pot where people, technology, and innovation come together Agritechnica spans seven days and is spread over 23 halls. Held in Hanover, Germany, this biennial event draws 2,800 exhibitors and more than 400,000 visitors from 88 countries.
One of the goals of this event is to take a futuristic look at innovations that have the potential to impact agricultural practices in the not-so-distant future.
In the Smart Farming exhibition area, attendees will have the opportunity to rate the ideas presented at Digital Cropping. Farmers are asked to give their opinion on whether a development is viable enough to prove itself in day-to-day farm work. Does it reduce the number of passes or operations? Does it make life easier? Does it save critical resources?
Fourteen exhibitors showcasing soil sensors, satellite signals, soil sampling, prognosis models, yield mapping, field mapping, application maps, yield potential maps, soil maps, drones and crop sensors will be critiqued by farmers.
AGRITECHNICA will be held again from 12 to 18 November 2017 and Senior Vice Chairman Mashood ALi Khan hope that during these two years the Private Sector SME companies will prepare themselves to Export Marketing Plan as well as training on Cultural Sensitiveness needed for export sales, Buyer Behavior, This regional Trade Fair for sub contracting and networking will prepare the group participants for their entry to European trade Fairs.
Senior Vice Chairman Mashood Ali Khan also invited European and Turkish Tractors OEMs to come and join our PAPS 2016, Pakistan have potential to invest and make your brands here.
Suzuki Cultus to be replaced with Suzuki Celerio in 2016
Pak-Suzuki has announced Suzuki Cultus 2016 is going to be replaced with Suzuki Celerio 2016.
Pak Suzuki has been in the market since long. It has enjoyed several successful glorious years of increasing sales trends. However, in recent times with the new trends in auto industry and usage of social media, consumers’ taste has changed as Suzuki since quite a while, has not been innovative in the Pakistani market.
It has been producing Suzuki Mehran in the market since 1980’s and has not introduced several changes in the model since its launch. The sale of Mehran hence has now faced a declining sales trend.
Due to several new variants developed by the competitors catering to different target markets, the consumers now have a wide choice to choose from and it’s hard to say that Suzuki Mehran has hardly remained a choice for them. If we consider each factor leading to consumer choices, we will find that for instance in the case of efficient fuel consumption we now have hybrid cars, and we now also have several options for economically budget constrained consumers.
Hence, in the current market scenario Suzuki having discontinued its Alto, no innovation in Mehran, the failure of Wagon R, is having quite a tough time.
To recapture what’s lost and get back in the action again Suzuki has decided to replace its Cultus with the all new Maruti Suzuki Celerio. So much to its excitement, the new Celerio would feature a 3-cylinder engine which is known to be K10B. This new engine is the K-Next series. It doesn’t have a clutch pedal and hence, would provide an ease in shifting gears without the effort of pushing on the pedal.
Speculators say Celerio would be a huge success and its sales would reach new heights. The designers of Suzuki have tried to develop the Celerio as a similar model to Suzuki Swift.
Maruti Suzuki Celerio would add to the large Suzuki automobile model as compared to its competitors and would provide a sense of innovative touch to the current portfolio so as to develop a perception of the corporate brand of Suzuki as keeping up with the changing trends among its target market.
Keeping in view the race for market share in 1000CC cars, the competition is also keeping up as Toyota recently has also announced to assemble Vitz and Vios in Pakistan which would not only reduce the cost of these models but would also increase the buyers’ confidence as now there would be no need to import Vitz having no surety of how much its value is depreciated before being previously reconditioned, also not to mention the import duties levied on these cars because now they would have the opportunity to buy a brand new model from within Pakistan and that too at a cheaper price.
Likewise, Honda is also keeping up and is introducing the all new HR-V subcompact crossover.
Summing Up…
Hence the competition in the upcoming years 2016 will be much more intense as these big car manufacturing giants with vast economies of scale would fight over capturing the market with new offering but this too would benefit the target market as previously mentioned hence good news for the car folks especially those interested in buying a 1000CC car.
Guest post by http://www.pakwheels.com
DY200-3 Specs
| Item | Details |
| Size | 2070*780*1230 |
| Wheel base(mm) | 1363 |
| Net weight(kg) | 155 |
| Max load capacity(kg) | 150 |
| Front tire specifications | 100/80-17 |
| Rear tire specifications | 130/70-17 |
| Max. speed | ≥95 |
| Engine | 200cc |
| Bore and stroke(mm) | Φ66×57.8 |
| The maximum net power and corresponding speed [kW/(r/min)] | 10.5/7500 |
| The maximum torque and corresponding speed [N.m/(r/min)] | 15.5/5500 |
Meet The Yamaha Motobot: A Humanoid Robot That Will Learn To Ride Motorcycles Better Than Humans Can
Yamaha is delving into the world of autonomous vehicles in a way fitting of the unique company that it is: by building a robot capable of piloting a motorcycle better than a human can—but not just any human: nine-time MotoGP champion Valentino Rossi, who won this year’s championship on a Yamaha YZR-M1 and who some consider practically super-human.
In one of the most astounding announcements at this year’s Tokyo Motor Show that, nevertheless, was somehow overshadowed by other unveilings—including the Hyundai IDS Concept and even Yamaha’s own Sports Ride Concept—the Japanese maker of motorcycles and musical instruments revealed an “autonomous motorcycle-riding humanoid robot” called Motobot.
The blue, human-shaped machine has stationary arm- and leg-like appendages. It also has a head, and the entire robot is mounted atop the company’s flagship YZF-R1 motorcycle, looking very much like a professional MotoGP racer crouching low toward the handlebars to accelerate down a racetrack.
Yamaha’s goal with the Motobot project is to apply three decades of know-how creating assembly robots for industrial applications in a thinking machine of another sort.
Most robots in use today perform a single task with precision beyond what a human can do, such as joining together two heavy metal parts and creating a series of precise welds in a matter of seconds, for example, or torquing down 20 bolts at varying levels of tightness, all at once and with exacting precision.
Motobot, however, is far more complicated. It must be capable of performing innumerable fine adjustments to control the complex motions of a motorcycle—something humans can do relatively easily, but robots cannot.
The project is not an end unto itself, though. Yamaha plans to apply what it learns in building Motobot to improve its other lines of business, which include motorcycles, snowmobiles, ATVs, musical instruments, industrial robots, and more.
“We want to apply the fundamental technology and know-how gained in the process of this challenge to the creation of advanced rider safety and rider-support systems, and put them to use in our current businesses, as well as using them to pioneer new lines of business,” Yamaha said in a release announcing the Motobot.
So while other automakers are focusing their attention on making vehicles autonomous, Yamaha is looking instead to creating autonomous robots that can pilot a regular vehicle, such as a motorcycle, without modification. The potential for robotic chauffeurs comes to mind, but Yamaha did not make mention of such plans.
Motobot has six actuators for the steering, throttle, front brake, rear brake, clutch and gearshift pedal. Eventually, the goal is to employ high-precision GPS, various sensors and artificial intelligence—what Yamaha calls “machine learning”—to “enable Motobot to make its own decisions regarding the best lines to take around a racetrack and the limits of the motorcycle’s performance, so that it can improve its lap times with successive laps of the track,” the company said.
By the end of this year, Yamaha aims to have Motobot capable of cornering, running a slalom course, and riding in a straight line up to 62 miles per hour. By 2017, the goal is to have Motobot lap a racetrack at 124 miles per hour or higher and start to develop capabilities that exceed those of a human rider.
Yamaha anticipates that Motobot will be adaptable to other vehicles like snowmobiles and personal watercraft. By 2020, the company hopes to start incorporating technology and learnings from the Motobot project into consumer products.
“By using Motobot technologies to optimize control of vehicle dynamics, we will develop higher performing and safer forms of mobility,” the company said.
In total, Yamaha unveiled six world debuts at the Tokyo Motor Show, besides the Motobot. These include a sports car design study called the Sports Ride Concept, a three-wheeled motorcycle called the MWT-9, two electric motorcycles—including one called the PES2, with innovative two-wheel drive—an electric mountain bike, and a retro-styled motorcycle called the Resonator125.
The 2015 Tokyo Motor Show opened to the public October 30, following two press days, and runs through November 8.
DY125-20 Specs
| Item | Details |
| Size | 1925*700*1120 |
| Wheel base(mm) | 1240 |
| Net weight(kg) | 105kg |
| Max load capacity(kg) | / |
| Front tire specifications | 2.50-17 |
| Rear tire specifications | 2.75-17 |
| Max. speed | ≥85 |
| Acceleration noise[dB(A)] | |
| Climbing ability(°) | |
| Fuel Consumption(L/100km) | |
| Engine | 125cc |
| Bore and stroke(mm) | φ52.4×57.9 |
| The maximum net power and corresponding speed [kW/(r/min)] | 6.0kW/7000r/min |
| The maximum torque and corresponding speed [N.m/(r/min)] | 9.7n.m/5000r/min |
Since Last Three Govt’s No New Auto Policy in Pakistan
AUTO INDUSTRY POLICY 2005 – 06, TO 2015-16
The Govt. of Pakistan is going to maintain new records of Auto Sector manufacturers through Engineering Development Board (EDB), which has written a letter to the Association of Pakistan Motorcycle Assemblers, The Pakistan Automotive Manufacturers Association, the Pakistan Association of Automotive Parts and Accessories Manufacturers and to provide company-wise employment position in the sector.
The EDB said it is compiling data on employment position in the automotive sector of Pakistan. The purpose is to ascertain and update employment position in the auto sector and utilize the same in policy-making, the EDB added. The Govt. requires company-wise employment position covering permanent, contractual and daily-wagers on priority basis, the letter said.
Car and bike-assemblers also claim to have provided huge employment directly or indirectly after achieving up to 70 per cent localisation component in cars and light commercial vehicles (LCVs), 90pc in case of bikes and tractors and 45pc in heavy vehicles. “The auto world has changed a lot and leading Pakistani assemblers stand at the same old position and were rolling out two to three decade-old bikes and cars,” Chairman APMA said.
After change in government in 2008, local rupee started to losing the strength against the various currencies especially the US Dollar, Japanese Yen and Chinese Yuan. Moreover purchasing power of people started declining. As a result, the Chinese bike assemblers failed to push up the rates due to intense competition among themselves. Less than 10 assemblers managed to succeed in the stiff competition while around 40 units have been struggling to survive while some had packed up their business.
Due to lack of mass transport project in Karachi and other big cities consumers dependent on two wheeler and around 50 per cent buyers purchase bikes on installment basis.
He hailed the Metro Bus Project introduced in Lahore and Rawalpindi Islamabad recently which would benefit hugely to the general public. He urged the government to introduce similar project or circular railway for Karachi city.
Sabir Shaikh said he was much hopeful from the current government for being heard their grievances and suggestions in the policy making but the government maintained the same attitude which had been in vogue since 2006.
“I guarantee if our suggestions are given due considerations in the auto sector then this will definitely end up corruption on imports through smuggling of auto parts will also stop,’ he said adding that uniform policy will lure foreign and private investments and the industry will grow. What is uniform policy? One tax on CKD’s and Commercial Imports of Auto Sector and the other Tax on CBU’s.
“The government has to end up the monopoly of Japanese car and bike assemblers in order to flourish the local industry otherwise the situation will remain the same,” Sabir said.
For the import of CBU bikes, no separate policy had been announced for the last 25 years. This is a big segment which could generate more revenues for the government. Many assemblers are importing over 100cc bikes in 100 per cent CKDs and marketing their products as locally made products.
Since 2010-11, when the last auto policy expired (2005-06 to 2010-11), the country’s third-largest taxpaying sector has been working without updated guidelines.
The policy is said to be in the making. It is not clear how much more time the process will take, but according to high level sources, the policy draft has already been finalised and its summary has been forwarded for clearance to the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC).
The chairman Association of Pakistan Motorcycle Assemblers, Muhammad Sabir Shaikh said that we have no information about changing for motorcycle industry in upcoming Auto Policy, because no one invite us in last few meetings of new Auto Policy including August 07, meeting in EDB.
An assessment report of the Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP), released in the month of October 2014, confirmed the undesirable dominant market position of the assemblers, to the chagrin of car users in the country.
In November 2014, the CCP had reportedly sought liberalised import of used cars and suggested increasing their age limit from three to five years to induct market competition.
The leading carmakers, operating their plants round the clock, have failed to catch up with the pace of growth in domestic demand. In the absence of options, buyers pay higher for a vehicle that lags in quality and safety standards. Often, the cars are delivered up to four months after the payment.
The said report noted that “the Pakistani automobile industry is inward-looking and tries to protect itself through the use of regulatory instruments. Pakistan needs to develop the automobile industry instead of protecting it, and in this regard imports will have a disciplinary impact on domestic firms”.
Keen to get a foothold in Pakistan’s auto market, a delegation from German auto giant Volkswagen was in the country a few weeks back. The company’s spokesman, Christoph Adomat, told the press that while “Volkswagen is constantly evaluating market opportunities on a worldwide basis, there are no decisions for an investment by the Volkswagen side in Pakistan”.
“The industry is operating in a very challenging environment. It is wrong to counterpose the interests of the local automakers and the consumers. The perception of dearer, low quality vehicles is a myth. People must not forget that the tax component in a vehicle’s price is as high as 35pc. This means that a 1000cc car priced at Rs1m currently can be sold for Rs. 650,000 if the government foregoes taxes,” the same situation in motorcycle, the 70 CC bike assembled by a small assembler costs Rs. 38,000/= including the Tax amount of Rs. 10,000/=. It means the price of small 70 CC bike is Rs. 28,000/=.
After the approval of finance bill 2015-2016 by national assembly, the new shape of SROs 656/2006, SRO 693/2006 and SRO 655/2006 also arrived. APMA Chairman, Muhammad Sabir Shaikh said the bike industry was highly hopeful from the current government that it would bring down the customs duty besides introducing unified customs duty coupled with reduction in sales tax by at least one to two percent. However, nothing was done in the budget. He hoped that finance minister must be thinking to take some steps for the bike industry on the above issues.
He expressed his concern over the persistent delay in AIP whose exercise between the industry and the government got underway from October 2013 to August 2015. He urged the government to settle the dust by announcing the policy either in the Trade Policy or separately so that the industries could make further investment.
APMA believes that FBR must understand that the government has to phase out auto sector SROs in the next two three months. Otherwise, two to three more years would again go in waste in understanding the issue.
APMA the government wants direct impact of taxation measures to reach the end users. However, it is only possible when government introduces a uniform policy for both large scale and SMEs. There is a need to remove hurdles of IORC besides bringing uniformity in valuation system, removing the hurdles like production certificates and importable lists by the EDB etc. This will help the industries to introduce new models at affordable prices.
All the policies and SROs made in the last 30 years were not in the interest of the country, not revenue-oriented and were basically following an anti localization policy and also against the industrialization and employment. Government should focus in the Auto Industry Policy on two types of duties – duty on spare parts (for OEMs, commercial market, assemblies, sub assemblies, components and sub components) and secondly on completely built up units (CBU’s).
APMA strongly urged that issuance of various permissions through EDB such as importable lists; production certificates and IORC should be done away in coming auto industry policy. All over the country the dealers of auto sector and parts should be registered in the sales tax net.
The committees formed by finance minister under FBR in which FPCCI and some other chambers were the members is not enough as there is a need to induct more experts of the field including Motorcycle Industry of Pakistan.
The government must give its due attention to the two wheeler segment this year especially and efforts should be made to pressurize leading assemblers to bring a change in the decades old 70cc models. Policy hurdles, if removed, would encourage assemblers to introduce new models in the country.
The government should realize that the main stakeholders are motorcycle assemblers of Pakistani and Chinese domestic brands who are producing more than one million units of two wheelers annually for the last many years. The more than 50 approved units of two wheelers, out of 104 are producing Pakistani brands in collaboration with Chinese assemblers. It seems that the AIP is being made at facilitating only three Japanese car and bike assemblers. Does the new auto policy really care about country’s revenue, industries, job opportunities, genuine localization etc? This is million dollar question and yet to be replied by the policymakers.
The industry is quite stunned by the media report that AIDP II policy has been finalized without bringing all stakeholders on board and will be reviewed by Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the federal cabinet.
They pointed out that ECC in its meeting on August 26, 2014 had deferred the decision on the policy with the direction that the policy draft should be shared with all stakeholders including relevant ministries and industries for review and comments.
Later, the policy was sporadically discussed by the architects with some stakeholders only. The industry experts expressed concern that the EDB has hoodwinked the ECC and despite its direction to share the proposed long term AIDP and record their views, “neither Pakistan Association of Auto Parts Manufacturers nor Association of Pakistan Motorcycle Assemblers, and Including Japanese Assemblers body Pakistan Automotive Manufacturers Association has received any final draft of the Auto Policy,” the stakeholders said.
They said EDB or the committee assigned to prepare the policy have the right to formulate it but they should share the final draft with all the stakeholders irrespective of the fact that the suggestions given by them are being incorporated or not.
They said views of all the stakeholders should be part of the final draft and reasons for rejecting the suggestions of each stakeholder should be discussed and justified.
The long term policies of any industrial sector are formulated with the main objective of protecting the domestic industry, they said, adding that the interests of consumers should also be given weight.
Moreover, even in cases where vendors offer to delete some auto components, the new entrants fail to provide the drawings.
The reason is that they procure parts of different manufacturers from the open market as because of very low volumes, and do not develop any auto components locally. In AIDP I (2006-11), only those entrants were allowed that produce at least 500,000 cars globally in a year outside Pakistan. “But, now even those that produce 5,000 units outside Pakistan are allowed to enter the Pakistan market on huge concessions,” the Auto Sector spokes person said.
This exclusive article on Pakistan Automotive sector published in Monthly Automark Magazine’s September-2015 printed edition
YAMAHA YBR 125G-First Look
Following the launch of its first model YBR125, Yamaha launched second of the first three 125cc models, YBR 125G. Yamaha had stunned the Pakistani motorcycle community by the launch of its first model and hence people were anxiously waiting for the launch of the second model. Most of the riding community already knew that the next model would be the 125G, the trail version and thanks to the internet we already knew what the upcoming bike would look like. Shockingly, however, Yamaha stunned the biker community once again although this time to their disappointment since the trail version turned out to be nothing more than a little face uplift of the regular YBR125 model. Nonetheless, some of us Pakistan Bikers Club members decided to visit a local show room and see the bike in person.
There is literally no difference at all between the YBR125 and YBR125G, with the exception of a round light and a raised front fender on the G version and slightly different dual-purpose tyres, everything else on the G version is same as the regular model. YBR 125G comes with the same OHC engine and produces a similar torque as the regular model so there is no increase in torque as some might have expected. Fork travel is almost the same for both models though YBR 125G has a slightly more ground clearance than the regular model, which is only because of the higher profile dual purpose front tyre, but the ground clearance that is typical feature of an off road bike is missing here. There is no hand protection on the handle bar, which obviously is an essential part of an off-road bike and is readily available on the YBR 125G sold across the world. The tank and tail is also borrowed from the regular 125 model, here Yamaha seems to have started following the crooked tactics of other manufacturers, i.e. saving the production cost by using same parts as on other models. Internationally, the YBR 125G comes with a windshield over the headlight and although Yamaha Pakistan did put the mount there perhaps they were in a rush to launch the bike that they forgot to put the windshield there altogether and the naked mount looks pretty hideous. Coming to the price, YBR 125G has been priced at Rs.132400/-, which is exactly Rs. 3000/- higher than the regular model, apparently the increased price is not justified considering that the round light has replaced a stylish diamond shape light, which is obviously costlier than the round shape light.
There is no extra light on the 125G and the riders are left to the mercy of the same 12V 35W halogen bulb. The stylish chain cover had impressed us all when we saw it on the YBR125 a few months ago, but perhaps Yamaha took our appreciation for a good excuse to put it on the 125G too, although this time it was highly disappointing. I tried hard to recall an off road bike that came with a fully covered chain and soon gave up. The YBR 125G can hardly be called an off-road bike, it is essentially a road bike trying hard to give the look of an off-road bike. My commiserations to the off-road bike lovers who were waiting for Pakistan’s first locally manufactured pure off-road bike, this is not it.
Exclusive Article written for Monthly Automark Magazine by Tala Hussain Malik, Member www.pakistanbikersclub.com