Impact of COVID-19 on Automotive Industry in Pakistan

COVID-19 Affecting Global:

The novel Corona virus known as COVID-19 is severely affecting global economy and financial economy. We can see a rise in unemployment, transportation activities disrupted and businesses are temporarily shutting down. People are bound to live in their house. Unfortunately, the outbreak of this disease has also effected automotive industry in various ways.

Effect of COVID-19 on Automotive Industry in Pakistan:

If we talk about Pakistan, even before this deadly virus our automotive industry was not booming as our currency was fluctuating and there was a constant rise in Dollar against Rupee. The excess burden of tax further diminished boom of this industry. Automotive parts became expensive, sales declined further due to heavy price hike of cars in Pakistan. It became almost impossible for a middle class person to purchase a new car.

Corona Virus pandemic further worked as an ice on cake. People were unable to work due to lock down. Many companies in Pakistan such as Toyota had to shut down their production due to an extreme decrease in sales. Hence, the already suffering automotive market faced another setback. It has also effected the local labor as the factories are closed and all the employees are sitting idle in their houses.

Many industries got effected in this pandemic but the worst effect was to transport industry as people cannot travel and almost every country has banned traveling. People don't tend to buy new cars because of the current situation. At this moment, main concern of people is to be safe and to lessen their activities as much as possible. Government is also playing a vital role in this scenario as they are discouraging people to involve themselves in any outdoor activities.

As the demand of cars is decreased resulting in constant loss for manufacturers so they are trying to come up with such schemes which will help them to lessen their losses. Many major companies including Toyota, Suzuki are giving exiting packages for customers for buying car in instalments so that they can increase their sale which is somehow a sign of relief for both customer and seller. Automotive industry in Pakistan will get some boost due to this policy. With this people will think to buy a car as they will just give a little amount of money in a month which they could easily manage even in this pandemic situation so there is a sign of hope as this policy along with others will help this industry to sustains itself from heavy losses.

In other countries of world, the situation is not very different as many developed countries have more worst situation. In Wuhan, city of China where first time this deadly virus caused destruction was known as the city of cars as China is among one of the leading automotive industry due to its population. Even in China, automotive industry had a setback as no one was allowed to travel. All over China, traveling was strictly prohibited which adversely affected traveling. People were not using cars and they were not even thinking of buying it. Talking about Pakistan, Automotive industry in Pakistan is still not that much affected as compared to other countries. Pakistan has still managed to cope with this situation even when it was very difficult situation.

This was all due to policies of government and people following SOP's.

Even while traveling one should follow SOP's. Everyone should wear a mask and use hand sanitizer as our own safety should be our first priority. This deadly virus is busy in taking precious lives and we have to protect ourselves. As we are observing second wave of this virus, economy may be further worsen and may have further negative impact on manufacturing and service industries so we observe that this situation can become more volatile. We can play our role in this situation by following the rules specified by government.

We hope that the world will be soon free from this pandemic and everyone will be living safely as before. People are bearing huge losses and this can only be lessening in a way that these pandemic overs soon. May everyone live a healthy life ahead.