LAHORE - The Suzuki Motor Company has raised the prices of some of its variants, effective from the January 1, 2018, by Rs10,000 to Rs20,000.

According to the company, the prices of Bolan and Ravi have been increased by Rs10,000, Mehran VX and VXR by Rs10,000 (CNG variants prices unchanged), while prices of Wagon-R VXR and VXL have been hiked by Rs20,000. The move was widely anticipated due to the recent Pak rupee devaluation against the US$, which would push up costs of raw materials for auto assemblers. To recall, one of the PSMC's competitors, Indus Motor Company (INDU) had recently increased prices of some of its Corolla variants in response to the Pak Rupee devaluation.

Indus Motor Company had increased prices of 1,300-1,600cc cars by Rs50,000-60,000 in Dec. The new price of Toyota Corolla XLi, and GLi is Rs1.81 million and Rs1.94m compared to Rs1.75m and Rs1.88m respectively. The new price of 1.6 Altis has been jacked up to Rs2.19m from Rs2.14m.

The industry attributed the price hike to seven to eight per cent rupee devaluation against the dollar which has pushed up prices of imported components. They said that due to the devaluation of the rupee, the cost of locally produced components, which have imported raw material, has also gone up owing to losing strength of the rupee.