Heavy vehicles to cost more

The withdrawal of zero-rated exemption from commercial vehicles (trucks, diesel and CNG buses) is bound to make vehicles costlier. An official in Hinopak Motor Company (HML) said the prices of truck chassis and complete bus hover between Rs1.6 million to Rs8 million and these vehicles will become costlier by Rs300,000 to Rs1.3 million due to imposition of 16 percent general sales tax.

In only one category the government was charging 17 percent sales tax and 2.5 percent federal excise duty on buses of less than 40 persons' seating capacity. From July 1, 2011, the rate of GST will be 16 percent but there will be no FED on this segment, thus bringing some relief in prices.

In the last one year the overall price increase in commercial vehicles segment was 10-14 percent due to rupee yen parity, hike in steel prices, rising material cost and high general inflation that resulted in higher cost of production. HML deputy general manager sales and business development Shahab Anwar, in a statement, said the imposition of GST on commercial vehicles would badly hit commercial automobile industry, which is already in declining phase.

The zero-rating facility extended to the commercial automobile sector in 2006 was of strategic importance for modernization of trucking industry to cope with the transportation needs of the country. He said this policy in the past had witnessed a drastic change in the transportation trends as new and heavy prime movers were now seen on the Pakistani roads. This also helped to reduce the adverse overloading phenomenon.

The new tax measures will directly hit the automobile industry and unemployment will rise in the principals as well as the vendors' areas. The decision will also have a direct inflationary effect as high transportation cost would result in general price hike and consumers will be affected. The commuters will also suffer with high fares of buses. He said it looked strange that the government was trying to meet its revenue target from the heavy vehicle industry, whose yearly sales hover between 4,000-5,000 units. Shahab said prior to the new budget the government also allowed import of second-hand vehicles which was already impacting commercial vehicles industry operating at 50 percent capacity. It will have a negative impact on overall industry as new investment may not be encouraged.

There has been a difference of opinion among the experts regarding impact of the nine newly included items into the General Sales Tax (GST) net on the life of a common man. Former Federal Minister for Finance Dr Hafeez A Pasha said that the newly included nine items into the GST net would not affect the common man while Dr Pervez Tahir, former Chief Economist of Planning Commission of Pakistan, said these things would certainly affect the common man.

The government in this budget has imposed tax on CNG kits, CNG buses, agricultural machinery, aircraft and its spare parts, ships, ambulance equipments, ultrasound gel, surgical tapes and computer software. The government on the other side has reduced GST rate from 17% to 16% and introduced three new rates in the GST i.e. 0%, 5% and 16%.

Dr Hafeez A Pasha said that government has to generate its revenue. Reduction in the GST rate would have good affect for the poor people. Regarding GST on CNG kits and buses, Pasha said that the consumption of CNG must be discouraged.

Dr Pervez Tahir responded quite contrary to the opinion of Dr Pasha. He said the implementation of GST on the above said products would certainly affect the common man.

-Published on page#-18 in June-2011 issue of MOBILE WORLD Magazine.

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Leadership training for Hinopak in wilds

A four-day exercise for Hinopak employees concluded in the Lower Himalayas, marking the highpoint of a series of training programs aimed at simulating leadership and team-handling situations in outdoor settings to offer increasingly higher value in terms of workplace application.

The training program, which exposed nearly two dozen participants to different dimensions of leadership, consisted of custom-made projects to make it possible for them to lead teams beyond their known potential and contribute to their maximum when assigned a role as team member. "Our wilderness-based education series has been designed to enhance leadership skills and improve teamwork, and is interspersed with meaningful review and debrief sessions to ensure a long-lasting recall value for the participants," said Training Impact CEO and Course Facilitator Naseem Zafar Iqbal.

"By the time the participants reached uphill to the ultimate physical destination of their journey, they had experienced and practiced various facets of leadership regarded as crucial to earning success and sustaining growth in business as well as personal life," he further said.

Participant from the Hinopak Motors Limited applauded the entire exercise, describing it as substantially helpful in improving our decision-making and crisis-handling skills. Training Impact, a pioneering organization in wilderness education, is poised to conduct two similar programs, each for an MNC and a well-known Pakistan-based corporation, again in the Lower Himalayas next month.

HINOPAK Sales & Marketing Conference 2010

Hideya Iijima MD & CEO of Hinopak commended the efforts of Sales & Marketing team in achieving last year's target & stressed the need for even greater efforts to meet country's transportation needs. He also said that Total Customer Satisfaction is Hinopak's motto and in year 2010, we look forward to even more outstanding efforts by providing more after sales support and training to customers

Being Market leader of Pakistani Automobile Industry, and the largest assembler and manufacturer of trucks and buses in Pakistan, Hinopak Motors Limited always strive to provide best sales support to its customers.

Hinopak organized a Sales & Marketing Conference 2010 to review last year's performance and formulate future strategies to achieve company's goal of Total Customer Satisfaction. During 2 day conference, plans and strategies were chalked out to provide customers with better value for their money and support their business activities by providing them Total Transportation Solution.

Representatives from Hinopak's Head office, Area offices & other delegates participated in the conference and presented performance reviews and future plans for their respective territories.

In his inaugural address, Mr. Hideya Iijima MD & CEO of Hinopak commended the efforts of Sales & Marketing team in achieving last year's target & stressed the need for even greater efforts to meet country's transportation needs. He also said that Total Customer Satisfaction is Hinopak's motto and in year 2010, we look forward to even more outstanding efforts by providing more after sales support and training to customers.

Takeshi Ito, Deputy Managing Director, Hinopak congratulated and highly appreciated the efforts of sales teams. He urged the participants of conference to retain their efforts and hard work to provide more care to its customers.

In his address Irfan Shaikh, Director Sales & Marketing said that Hinopak owes its success to untiring efforts of the Sales and Marketing and Product Support Team. He added that to provide the best support to its customer Hinopak always strive to strengthen its after sales service network and the aim of this conference is also to motivate and educate our sales teams how to facilitate the customers for their hassle free business activities. He further said that to provide prompt service to customers we have recently handed over the mobile workshops to our dealers and planned to increase them to facilitate our customer even at the remotest of locations.

Irfan Shaikh strongly emphasized the importance of training of customers, he said that Hino Mobile Training Unit is in operation since more than one year and has already provided on spot training to hundreds of Hino customers. He urged Hinopak sales teams to motivate their customers to get benefit of this service at their door step which would definitely economize their business activities.

The Award for Best Sales Performance was presented to Badar ul Hussain, Manager Sales Planning and coordination, Hinopak while best sales performance award area wise presented to Area Central.