In 1980, the government decided to start a partial privatization of PACO. Suzuki was the first company to jump into this market, leading to the creation of Pak Suzuki Motor Company, which initially had just a 12.5% stake from Suzuki, with the rest owned by the government. The company started off with the capacity to manufacture 45,000 cars a year by taking some of the plants owned by PACO. By 1990, PSMC built a new plant at Port Qasim, an industrial suburb of Karachi, which took production capacity up to 50,000 cars a year.