TEHRAN, Iran, May 6
Trend:
Deputy Head of Saipa automaking company said that the company is ready to resume sales of Pride cars.
"After the cessation of production of Pride, its price in the open market has increased irrationally,” Hossein Kazemi said, Trend reports citing ILNA.
He added that the Iranian car industry, especially Saipa Automotive Group, was criticized for many years due to the production of poor quality cars.
“Accordingly, Saipa removed this car from the production line,” Kazemi said. "Thus, the cessation of production of Pride caused the irrational rise in its price in the open market. However, in the rest of the world, when the production of a product is stopped due to old technology, its price decreases significantly.”
“In recent days, Saipa has been offered to re-launch the car production in order to regulate the market,” the Saipa official added. "This requires receiving the necessary licenses from the relevant institutions, including the National Standards Organization, the Environment Organization and the police.”
Three years ago, ISIRI and Iran’s Automotive Policymaking Council set new automotive standards and gave a two-year ultimatum to automakers to comply. The production of vehicles that fail to comply with 83 automotive standards was expected to be halted by the end of 2018, and Saipa's Pride topped the elimination list.
In November 2019, Nayereh Pirouzbakht, the head of the Institute of Standards and Industrial Research of Iran, announced that the production of all Pride models will be halted by June 2020.
Policymakers and industry executives also promised to help replace the scrapped vehicles with better quality vehicles, but this hasn't happened yet in the absence of suitable alternatives, the report said.