JEDDAH: Zahid Tractor & Heavy Machinery Companys decision to end their franchise agreements for passenger cars with Volvo, Renault, and SsangYong Motors in Saudi Arabia, as announced on Saturday, was not due to the suffering of any financial losses by the company or local disinterest in its products, the company said in an interview with Arab News yesterday.
As previously said, our decision to give up our passenger car business was a basic group decision to further expand our line of construction machinery and expand our core business both upstream and downstream strategically, said Wafaa Zawawi, the company’s director of administration.
Zahid Tractor has been the sole representative of Volvo, Renault, and SsangYong Motor companies in the Kingdom for over 50 years and will remain to be the distributor of the Volvo Truck, Volvo Bus, and Renault Truck companies in Saudi Arabia.
The decision was not an easy one for us to make, as Zahid Tractor had to take into consideration three prime factors: first of all our customers, which we will continue to serve in good faith in keeping our showrooms and after-sales services open in providing spare parts and maintenance, Zawawi said. The second factor, Zawawi mentioned weighing on Zahid Tractor’s decision to stop selling passenger cars was its employees. We have already established training programs for our employees to allow them to be re-employed in other positions within Zahid Group, he said, adding that Volvo, Renault, and SsangYong Motors Company have also all shown keen interest in employing Zahid Tractor employees in their companies while also offering to re-train them in needed fields. The third component determining their decision, Zawawi commented, was its business goal in building the company’s commitment of investing in their heavy machinery currently in demand from the public and private sector while making the transition for the new chosen representative of the international companies a smooth one.
