Suzuki Alto replaces Maruti 800 in Sri Lanka
View(s):Maruti Suzuki India’s action of bringing the curtain down on the 30-year saga of the Maruti 800 model will not hinder Sri Lanka’s Maruti car market as its agent Associated Motorways (Pvt) Ltd (AMW) has already replaced previous models with the new ‘Suzuki Alto 2013’, a top official of the company said.
While the Maruti 800 model was a fast selling car in the past, the company is now marketing newer models of ‘Suzuki Alto’ which is very popular among middle class families in the country, AMW Group Managing Director Samantha Rajapaksa told the Business Times.
He revealed that the company is not importing Maruti 800 model since the launching of the new ‘Suzuki Alto’ models in Sri Lanka.
The new Suzuki Alto 2013 is a complete model change from the previous popular version.
However, he noted that even though the Maruti 800 is going out of production it will not be forgotten as it has fulfilled road transport needs and suited the purse of thousands of Sri Lankans since the 1980s.
Last week, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd announced that the last of the Maruti 800s rolled off the production lines on January 18, 2014.
More than 2.7 million units of the Maruti 800 have been sold since it was launched in India in 1983.
ile Maruti Suzuki India’s plan of setting up an assembly plant in Sri Lanka is awaiting Government approval, Mr. Rajapaksa revealed.
“Although still in the preliminary stages, the project is very much in the pipeline of the company,” he said adding that “halting of Maruti 800 production in India will not affect the setting up of a Semi Knock-down (SKD) plant in Sri Lanka, to assemble cars in the country with a certain component of value addition”.
According to statistics of Department of Motor Traffic, the sale of Maruti cars per month dropped to 170 in 2013 from 550 in 2012 and 1250 in 2011.
This was due to heavy taxes ranging from 200 to 250 per cent imposed by the government to curb vehicles imports that also hit Indian budget cars like Maruti, motor traders said.