Nissan restarts sedan production in Karachi

TOKYO/ISLAMABAD, Jan. 31 Kyodo -
Nissan Motor Co. announced Saturday that its affiliate in Pakistan has begun
producing Nissan Sunny compact sedans for the first time since 2002.
''We are very pleased to restart the production in Pakistan,'' Shinya Hannya,
Nissan's corporate vice president for overseas markets, said in a statement.
It said production is under way at a Karachi plant operated by Ghandhara Nissan
Ltd., which has in recent years been selling Nissan vehicles imported from
Japan in completely built-up or CBU condition through six sales outlets
nationwide.
GNL plans to begin selling the locally produced Sunny sedans beginning Sunday
through its local dealership network.
Nissan said that in order to start production at the GNL plant, it dispatched
engineers and technicians from Japan for 10 months to share techniques and
tools with the Pakistani company.
According to GNL's 2008 annual report, the start of complete knockdown or CKD
production of the Sunny was delayed for about six months because of the law and
order situation in Pakistan, which had caused a temporary suspension of the
Japanese technical teams' visits.
Car sales in Pakistan are expected to decline by 46-48 percent during fiscal
year 2008-2009 because of the liquidity crunch and weakening economic
indicators, the Karachi-based English newspaper Dawn reported Saturday.
It said that car sales had already plunged by 48 percent in the first six
months of the current fiscal year, or July-December, to 36,079 units due to a
host of political and economic reasons.
Toyota Motor Corp. and Suzuki Motor Corp. have also set up assembly plants in
Pakistan.
==Kyodo