Micro Cars to enter mass transport arena

Ramani Kangaraarachchi

Micro Cars Ltd as one of the pioneer car manufacturers in Sri Lanka will enter the mass transport business in the country in the near future, Chairman Micro Cars Ltd Dr. Lawrence Perera said at the award ceremony of ISO Certificate 9001-2008 for Micro Cars Ltd held at Cinamon Grand Hotel on Friday.

He said that public transport is a key infrastructure facility essential for a developing country to go forward and his company has the talent the strength and the technology to do it.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa has the vision to take the country forward but there is something lacking and things are getting delayed, he said. The authorities must seriously focus on this requirement as one third of the problems of the people of the country are solved if there is a good public transport system, he said.

The company has already launched a new 40 seater bus and another 52 seater air conditioned bus will be launched alongwith a container carrier Primemover shortly. Dr Perera said that people of Jaffna have to spend huge amounts of money to come to Colombo as air fare but if there is a good transport system, this service can be offered at an affordale price such as Rs.1000 to come to Colombo.

As the journey from Jaffna to Colombo takes nearly 12 hours it has to have extra facilities such as toilets.

Micro Cars is ready to provide comfortable buses for this purpose as soon as the roads are opened for normal traffic.

Dr Perera said that Micro Cars is the first industry in Sri Lanka to receive ISO 9001-2008 which is a great achievement. It has already launched a range of products from cars to buses and tractors.

The company has signed up with world renowned companies and is now looking at the export market.

It will export protected Rexton cars to Pakistan, Bangladesh and India in the near future. Micro Cars has the capacity to manufacture 300 cars a year which will save a huge amount of foreign exchange.

He said that among the cars the latest Rexton is very popular and more than 300 cars have been sold so far.

Asked whether the company still manufactures the first model he said that it will be modified and come out with a new out look. He said the cost of a Micro Car is only one third of the price of an imported car.